The Stars Beyond

[Aury]

lol - the actual size will be 64x64; the large size is for the ship selection screen (Though even then it may still need to be sized down)

[sdw195]

about the same as a wolfen right??
(wolf = dog coyote = dog )

[Aury]

no, the wolfen is a precursor to the Canis Industries ships.

Also wolves =/= dogs, and coyotes =/= dogs >.>

The coyote for example is 64x64.

[sdw195]

no, the wolfen is a precursor to the Canis Industries ships.

Also wolves =/= dogs, and coyotes =/= dogs >.>

The coyote for example is 64x64.

wolves and coyotes are similar shape, size and build to dogs

[ThePrivateer]

no, the wolfen is a precursor to the Canis Industries ships.

Also wolves =/= dogs, and coyotes =/= dogs >.>

The coyote for example is 64x64.

wolves and coyotes are similar shape, size and build to dogs

Yep, he's right.

Coytoes, Dogs, Wolves belong to the Genus of Canis

Wolves and Dogs belong to the Species of C.Lupus

Dogs themselves are a subspecies of C.Lupus -- C. l. familiaris.

Dogs are thus more closely related to Wolves than they are Coyotes, but they still belong to the same Genus, which counts for most things.

Wolves, coyotes and dogs are all related by Genus, sharing similarties, but dogs are especially similar to wolves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyotes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs

[Aury]

Ah, but you see, you highlighted how he was wrong perfectly.

A is not B if B is a subset of A; A /may/ be B, if it happens to overlap, but is otherwise not.

And A and B and C can all be related, but still not that same.

Furthermore, "Wolf" is used to denote the undomesticated members of C.Lupus, while C.l. Familiaris is denoted by "Dog".

And Coyotes are a completely different species altogether, even though they are indeed Canines.

Note that the company is called CANIS Industries, thus the connection to the genus overall.

Given I'm the wolf guy here, just know that I know what I'm talking about

Also: I know foxes and a number of other species names I plan on using are not actually in the genus Canis, but they are close enough, and I needed names too. Just letting you know I'm /aware/ of it. XD

[Ttech]

Get a room.


We got the wikipedia talk pages to debate about this stuff.

[Aury]

So in the past 22 days while the forums were out, I have been making slow but steady progress on implementing my factional strategic and tactical AI's. Don't expect to see anything in a while though, as I've still got quite a bit of planning to do in order to get things balanced.

[Ttech]

You better because I actually want to end up playing this.

[Aury]

I'm going to put updated ideas on factions - there are quite a few running on outdated concepts & some I had even just plain forgotten about updating.


So I'm going to spend today working on who is what & how, and what ships & stuff they will have. Expect a post soon.

Also I have pushed back the planned work on the Canis Industries ships until I can get a better graphics computer later this year, simply because I would be far more productive working on ships that... don't stall out my computer.

[Aury]

Still working on that faction list btw - its quite long, and that's without all the backstory stuff

Anyways, I came up with some ideas to de-scrappify the salvagers I brought up on IRC with atarlost last night.

Salvagers will:
1)clean up empty wrecks and convert them to useful items they sell at nice prices.
2)offer item repair services up to say, level 6 devices?
3)offer a trimmed down version of the TSB tinkerer conversion services
4)will do a lot of sitting around (because docking with moving objects causes problems) (they will loot things in their immediate vicinity, but other than that, they are acting more as a shop)
5)have heavier weapons (or sometimes escorts, or even both) to defend themselves from pirates (who will actively try to kill them on occasion)
6)will have a dual & quad barricade variant, as more as many more image variations I mean, these are /not/ production-line ships.
7)will be marked as friendly (But be careful of retaliation)
8)they will NOT loot mules or other living dockable ships, and they will not loot cargo containers (either the droppable ones or the korolov ones)
9)in the event that george did not fix this, they will not be docking at radioactive wrecks.

There will also be new pirate transports that fill the roll of the current salvagers (to provide heavy armor for the freighter players) and come in single dual & quad barricade designs - however, they actively hunt down ships and loot the wrecks of the ships they kill. (Well, more precisely, their escorts do the hunting down). Similar to what the pirate frigates are doing now. The pirate frigates themselves got a new roll, more suited to their design. The Mauraders have their raid platform which already fills this roll, but will have a version with quad barricades that shows up later in the game.

Also, carbide carapace will also be ion effect immune, because carbide without ion effect immunity is like a pizza without toppings, that is to say, its a rather pathetic excuse for a pizza.

[Aury]

Before I forget, I want to credit Bien for some art he did that inspired the new coalition design (which is, IIRC, the 5th re-design of the coalition's ships )

[Aury]

For post 3333 I present...

The first couple of the (new) coalition ships!
(FYI, the cruiser is the one that takes the most after Bien's ship, and so does the carrier - I havn't finished them yet though.)

Background note: Viper Space Systems is one of the few anti-Hierarchy companies, along with Canis Industries and a few others, all of which for the most part reside either in the Frontier, the Fringe or the Ungoverned Territories, and all of which are not commonwealth-native companies. VSS & CI happen to be fairly close, and thus CI provides many of the higher-end weapons used on VSS's ships.

Note: the jpg compression (again) messed up the textures... I'm going to see what I can do about that... *longs for PNG support >.<*

Coalition Whiptail M-class Fighter Drone:

These short-ranged craft are small and lack a shield generator, as they are essentially 4 particle pulse guns mounted to an engine with a decent amount of armor. The Coalition uses these craft because of their relatively low population: they would not be able to field a large number of gunships. While they do have manned gunships, they are generally of a heavier class, comparable to the commonwealth's brittania-class. Though generally inferior to the gunships of the other major powers (the commonwealth, the ares, etc.), these craft do make up for their shortcomings by being able to deal a fair amount of damage from their quad cannons. The frontloaded design of the ship also allows them to effectively combat the heavily armored solarite vessels. These vessels are a modification of the original Viper Space Systems design, which contained only a single cannon, and is still available as a civilian product in Coalition space, along with the Whiptail II, which is a shielded version of the original Whiptail.


Coalition Perentie-class Frigate

The Coalition's Frigate is the most common coalition capital ship, often seen patrolling their space against infractions by the Solarites or various criminal factions from the Borderlands. These ships have 3 Canis Industries Ion Impact Cannon turrets, which house a pair of closely spaced Ion Impact Cannons. The IIC projectiles travel as speeds similar to that of a flenser, and do a fair job against light enemy craft, but are best against light capital ships, stations, and heavily armored Solarite ships. The Perentie also sports a set of Canis Industries Micro-Laser point-defense turrets. These point-defense turrets target both ships and projectiles, and can fire a large volume of short-ranged laser pulses, and for a rather low price. They make for a highly effective defense against swarms of light enemy craft generally encountered in the Borderlands, which the IIC turrets are rather ineffective at combating because of their frontloaded design.

[Aury]

Oh, I decided to merge the Charon Pirates and the Mauraders into a single consolidated faction called the Charon. (Just Charon)

They will still have those crummy borderlands outposts, the weak little enemies you can fight in the early systems, and they also have a number of heavier ships in later systems, like the mauraders currently do.
Charon has been displaced a ways into the borderlands and away from the commonwealth, the "rescue the korolov station" event nolonger happens specifically there, but another system, and it has a somewhat larger side-story. But of course all the mission programming & storyline stuff is coming after most of the faction's content is made/reorganized.

They don't be getting much in the way of additions, aside from some new variations of existing ship classes (including a heavier version of the drake), "sub-variations" of existing light ship classes (ie, not every corsair II is going to have the same equipment, there will be some variance), and they will have some loot haulers (with escorts) that replace the salvagers as a source of heavy armor for freighter players early in the game.

[Aury]

Rean Missileship


A near-clone of a Syrtian War design, with a few comparatively modern updates, one of these can outmatch a drake-II one on one. Considering that the main threat to the Rean are the Charon, this ship has proven rather effective in their campagins against the charon. They can often be seen patrolling borderlands space with a few escorts.
The Mk2 version sports particle secondary weapons, more powerful missiles, and an increased launcher speed, however, this means that they run out of ammo considerably faster, given that the KM120's take up more cargo space and are being fired more quickly. As a result Mk2's are usually only deployed in with support or to defensive positions; they are generally not sent out on patrols of systems outside of Rean control unlike the Mk1s.


Introducing: the Rean Empire

The Rean Empire is a peaceful (in the sense they are not attacking the original state) secessionist movement from the Commonwealth in the borderlands: because they see the commonwealth as doing diddly squat to protect the inhabitants of the region, they formed their own government and army to protect themselves, with a little aid from the Coalition, who sympathized with their cause, having done the same thing back in the days of the syrtian war. In fact, the same original defense ships the coalition had were donated to the fledgling Rean Empire (it is an empire in the sense that it engages in Imperialism, albeit on a more local scale, it is ruled by a senate however) to help them stop a Charon incursion. A few Frontier systems neighboring the coalition were also given to the Rean Empire, as they would provide ample resources for the small state to build the ships it would need. Since the government was founded, a number of neighboring systems have jumped to be annexed into the Rean Empire, in order to gain protection; the Rean Empire has very rarely had to rely on force to take systems: in fact, only two systems were taken by force, one from the Charon and one from the Elronian Confederacy. Simply by conveying the feeling of a strong presence and the capability to defend its people, the Rean Empire has won over quite a few former "commonwealth" (as much as they could be called under the commonwealth's control" systems. The Rean Empire has been expanding its borders to encompass a fair sized territory, even though they are beginning to run into problems now that they have pushed up against Elronian and Charon space on two sides, and the allied Coalition holds the systems to their Frontier side border, limiting their ability to expand as of late.
The Commonwealth has little interest in fighting the Rean, as they simply don't care enough about the borderlands. And if they did care, the Rean wouldn't have existed in the first place. And hey, if it puts a wrench in the Elronian and Charon plans, all the better (considering that unlike the Rean, they are both parties openly hostile to the commonwealth inhabitants of the borderlands), especially considering that the Charon have been attacking freighters, and growing bolder, and bringing newer and improved ships to bear. But only the Hierarchy has done anything about it, and even then, their attempts have been rather feeble, or in the case of Korolov Shipping, simply not enough.