JoshParnell wrote:I was a little surprised at how positive the overall reaction was to the video! People really seemed to like the ship improvements. I knew they were better but...seems like it made a really big difference to a lot of people. That's awesome!!! And I'm glad the early-morning coding for that little production demo excited a few people :)

Texture aside - it's a wholly new look when a ship isn't built entirely from square LEGO blocks. =)

The engines could be prettier but it's also pretty obvious that those are placeholders.
I'm thinking something shaped like a turbine and scaling with the size of the ship.
It can be "sunken" into the model and sticking out where it doesn't fit inside. That's a perfectly okay look - especially if an engine is worked right into the "wings" of a fighter.

Speaking of scaling:
I wonder if we can come up with a size formula for engines so that faster ships have visually more imposing engines. =)

The textures are pretty much where I want it to be too! Good job Josh!

Btw, you sounded like Cave Johnson with all the throat clearing and stuff. Did you inhale moon dust too?

LMAO. Just kidding. Take a good long break with your trip to see your relatives! You need to recover from the "grogginess".

LT is only 50% done and it is amazing already. Awesome++ stuff! I loved the video!

50%? Nosir

JoshParnell wrote:

Elric von Rabenfels wrote:Just... one... tiny piece of criticsm...

I, personally, feel like capital ships need to be MUCH, MUCH larger than the one you piloted in the video.
If that is "close" to how big a ship can get, that's not big enough in my humble opinion. Not even close to big enough.

Also, I suspect that while the texture has been improved by an incredible amount, the texture itself is still a placeholder?
Looks a bit too "Borg-Cube" to me, if you catch my drift.

Other than that, I'm downright amazed by how much progress you're making.
The idea of capital ships producing their own ammunition or even fighters is great!

Well, I know, I mean, we all want caps to be absolutely massive. Of course there are technical problems with this. I am trying my best to mitigate them, but, realistically, I think 2 orders of magnitude is about all I can manage (meaning 100x difference between large and small).

Not to be a party pooper, but will the available cargo space and weapons loadout keep up with the volume?

X3 for instance has capships that are 100x larger than a typical fighter. But if you do the math on how much cargo and weaponry should fit into such a large hull, you will find that the stats are far from what the volume suggests.
A fighter in X3 might have a cargo capacity of 100 units, so the cargo hold of a 100x larger capship should be something like 100x(100³) = 100.000.000 units. What you actually get in X3 is something like 100.000 units, a factor of 1000 less.

I always found that discrepancy a bit irritating .

The textures are looking jaw-droppingly good! EvE-online quality stuff and indeed, better than some of the work their team of God knows how many graphic artists have come up with. I was drooling at the close-ups of that battleship.

Gunther Haldan wrote:And the lighting effects are amazing. I liked the way the asteroids cast shadows through the dust cloud.

That would be my one criticism. The shadows don't look very realistic. The way they pop into (and out of) existence, for instance (look around the 5:30 mark as an example). And the layered look, when the camera is moving around relative closely behind a bigger asteroid around the 15:50 mark.

Katawa wrote:50%? Nosir

Yes, it is.
The problem is the exponential falloff towards the end. =P

Gazz wrote:

JoshParnell wrote:The engines could be prettier but it's also pretty obvious that those are placeholders.
I'm thinking something shaped like a turbine and scaling with the size of the ship.
It can be "sunken" into the model and sticking out where it doesn't fit inside. That's a perfectly okay look - especially if an engine is worked right into the "wings" of a fighter.

Speaking of scaling:
I wonder if we can come up with a size formula for engines so that faster ships have visually more imposing engines. =)

It all looks pretty fantastic from where I'm sitting, really great work, Josh!

Just a note in line with the comments on battleship thruster size and scaling with the ship - the missiles that thing was pumping out appeared to be really small in comparison to the ship size (tiny, but fierce!), whereas I think a battleship really should be firing all-up huge Capital-Ship sized missiles (this is assuming a battleship's missile mounts are proportionally heavier than, say, a fighter's missile launchers?

But hey, the game is really coming along. Carry on.

Just_Ice_au wrote:the missiles that thing was pumping out appeared to be really small in comparison to the ship size (tiny, but fierce!), whereas I think a battleship really should be firing all-up huge Capital-Ship sized missiles

Right now every hardpoint is the same size.

When ship construction becomes a hot issue then I'm going to pester everyone about having hardpoint sizes/classes so that we can have awesome and ginormous weapons that "fit" because the hardpoint is physically big enough to take a big weapon (without overlapping with other stuff)... that can then fire big missiles.

First things first. =)

Well to be fair those where anti-fighter/bomber guided missles, not capital killer torpedos.

but I agree that the thruster nozzles definitely need to scale up with the ship class.

Katawa wrote:50%? Nosir

Well 50% of the time until estamiated release then

N810 wrote:Well to be fair those where anti-fighter/bomber guided missles, not capital killer torpedos.

Indeed... and will Limit Theory make the distinction between missiles and torpedoes, I wonder?

I'm not demanding real-world rigor in terminology -- just thinking out loud that there might be a fun gameplay distinction to be made, not unlike how Wing Commander did it.

Flatfingers wrote:Indeed... and will Limit Theory make the distinction between missiles and torpedoes, I wonder?

They're the same thing in space really. A torpedo can be straight-fire, wire guided, or homing, so removing the requirement for water a torpedo is a rocket or a missile depending on its systems.

Are you suggesting torpedoes as straight fire rockets with a larger payload than an average rocket that might be able to detonate near targets as well as on them?

There are many ways to spin this.
You could have a "charge-up" time before a "torpedo" is released. When you pull the trigger, you get 2 circles on the HUD. The larger one starts shrinking. When it connects with the other, the torpedo is launched.
If the target leaves the large circle, the firing is aborted.

A lock-on time, only with more involvement because you actually have to do something to make it happen. You're also a bit limited in your maneuverability during that time...