A Drayman with more balls?

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Psyco Diver 69
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A Drayman with more balls?

Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

Does anyone have any type of special drayman they made? Something with turrets would be great, I understand it will always be slow but turrets would really make this thing livable while hauling cargo? I was thinking 3 turrets on the top and bottom and one in the back tip would really make this ship something to be feared by the endless pirates and retros
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I believe, but don't quote me on it, that either in the next release, or the one after that, there will be mini-destroyer and mini-carrier variants of the Drayman. The mini-destroyer has added turrets, and increased speed; the mini-carrier has added launch and recovery bays for escorts.
The current Drayman will be retained for canonical compatibility.
The modded versions may have drastically reduced cargo space, and leser shielding.
Another variant that was mentioned was a mini-frigate variant, with extra shielding and oodles of missile launchers but slower.
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Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

chuck_starchaser wrote:I believe, but don't quote me on it, that either in the next release, or the one after that, there will be mini-destroyer and mini-carrier variants of the Drayman. The mini-destroyer has added turrets; the mini-carrier has added launch and recovery bays for escorts.
The current Drayman will be retained for canonical compatibility.
The modded versions may have drastically reduced cargo space.
Thats great to hear, will they be easy to buy or will have to start the game over and redo the oxford missions? I'm not bothered by the smaller cargo space, I can haul 3 missions worth of stuff and barely use half my cargo space I already have
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Post by Dilloh »

The current PU release already has a turreted Drayman, the DraymanCVL. It is rarely seen in-game and much harder to get, but it is there. It'll be much easier to buy one in the next release.

Chucks cutter class is an option for the next release. This one would be a unique ship in the Privateer universe, and maybe the most powerful one.

Despite of that, the next release won't require starting a new game... However, I think it will be "worth" starting over again so you can play the new side stories in the state which is meant to be. But I won't touch the main campaigns, nor the ship locks there. All PU ships will be locked in their "own" campaigns, at least sooner or later.
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Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

Sounds good to me. I just thought it is a little wierd that you have a drayman that carrys tons of cargo and can't defend it self yet a galaxy has 2 turrets, missles, and 2 forward guns
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Post by Dilloh »

I just thought it is a little wierd that you have a drayman that carrys tons of cargo and can't defend it self
This is canonity, and in the opinion of most users a canonity error. The Drayman was first shown in WC2, there it was escorted by two Ferrets. The Privateer Drayman was a redesign of this "bulk frighter", and thrown into space - although its initial design was meant to have a fighter escort. It is a matter of fact, a mistake made a decade ago, similar to problems other scifi-series have. Take Star trek as an examples, and have a look at the different appearances of the Klingons in Kirk's and Picard's timelines. They needed two Enterprise episodes to find a lazy explanation for that.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Well put Dilloh; that's probably exactly how it happened.

Just don tell that to JC or the Retros, namely that Origin "made a mistake", though; they seem to think that, to be a WC fan, one must believe in the Divine Infallibility of its creators... :D

Having said that, what you're doing, namely adding Drayman variants to the game, rather than changing the canonical Drayman, is the best way to go. And to explain the continued existence of the (defenseless) canonical dray, one could pull some other tricks, such as to have them navigate only the safer routes; and often in convoys, and/or with escorts.

Would be nice to make a special AI for drays. In the story of Burrows before he became a privateer, while working for Kane, they use the Scarab's bulk to scratch one of the attacking retro talons; --they ram it. Would be a nice touch to see drays using ramming as a tactic, occasionally.
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Post by DualJoe »

What's wrong with the WC1 drayman then?

Image

Besides having escorts, I count 5 turrets on this schematic from Claw-Marks.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

LOL
Good point!
Really... Maybe we should add WC draymans, then. Why not? A lot of them should have retired from service by 2669. BTW, the Scarab was probably a WC drayman, I'm thinking. At least we know it did have turrets.
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Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

I'm glad I helping in giving you guys some ideas for new ships. Speaking of which what about some type of blockade runner. If I remember right they did have a special ship for the in the original WC stuff, but it has been years since I've read any of it. Something with heavy duty armor, shields, a couple gun turrets, big cargo hold, and make it one of the fastest ships. Just don't make it so it can't manuver that well and slow to get up to max speed
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

There's the question of balance: If you make a ship tougher (better armor and shields) it should be slower. If you make a ship faster, it should be more delicate. And there are many more factors to balance, such as armament, maneuverability, acceleration, cargo space... But to give a ship good armor, good maneuverability, high speed and large cargo hold, that's to make an unbeatable UBER-ship that breaks the game's balance.

The galaxy IS a blockade runner as is.

BTW, one thing we may have in the next release is a smugglers' ship (Cutlass).
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Post by Dilloh »

In the story of Burrows before he became a privateer, while working for Kane, they use the Scarab's bulk to scratch one of the attacking retro talons; --they ram it. Would be a nice touch to see drays using ramming as a tactic, occasionally.
E.g. by giving them afterburners, lasting for 5 seconds, but making the ship incredibly fast?
Besides having escorts, I count 5 turrets on this schematic from Claw-Marks.
Huh? I never noticed that.
Really... Maybe we should add WC draymans, then. Why not? A lot of them should have retired from service by 2669. BTW, the Scarab was probably a WC drayman, I'm thinking. At least we know it did have turrets.
The Priv Drayman could be a civilian design then, whereas the WC2 Drayman a military.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Exactly.

Dual, are you into it? Maybe we could make it a cooperative job; you do the unwelded mesh; I do the weldings and some greebling, you do the unwrap, I'll fine-tune the noodles stuff... we might even have it ready for the coming release, with some luck. It doesn't look like a difficult ship to model.
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Post by DualJoe »

It was originally second on my todo list for WCU after a kilrathi enemy.
I can indeed move it up a notch and have a go at it now.
Does indeed look pretty easy, the only difficult area would be the cockpit, but I've had to model more difficult stuff.

I'll have a go at it this evening and we can toss the model back and forth like we did on the Hornet, that worked out pretty well.

EDIT
We're aiming for the WC1 ingame model primarily I take it and then add stuff from the schematic above.
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Post by DualJoe »

Well it's a start and I'll make a separate WIP-thread after I've cleaned it up.

Image

I've just blocked in the basic shapes trying to get the dimensions right.
And again not one single view of the references is consistent with any other shot. The original 2,5D images where all distorted by the camera-settings they used to render them and the schematic is not very self-consistent.

I've gone a bit overboard with the resolution of all cylindrical shapes and I'll have to redo them with half or even a quarter of the current number of faces.

...

Damn I forgot the aspect ratio .... AGAIN ...

Wait a second ...

Here's a though one right from the start. There are a number of people here who feel strongly about recreating the old aspect-ratios of the game as would be seen on the old CRT's. I for one don't think the origin artists really thought about aspect-ratio at all. The schematic is proof of that, the Drayman as posted is very close to the schematic in dimensions, but it's much longer and wider than what you would have seen on your screen when the game was originally released.
So what will it be, aspect ratio corrected version or not (like the one in the schematic and in the render)?

Unless someone comes up with a very good reason, I'm not going to model an aspect-ratio corrected model, because I don't believe the Origin artists thought about the shape and dimensions of their pixels. Proof of my POV are all the published blueprints and schematics.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Dual, I told you there's no such thing as an "aspect ratio corrected model". It's the original screens that need correction, NOT the model. And that schematic diagram comes from a printed manual, scanned with a scanner with square pixels. There's nothing to correct there.

Things like the original cockpit screens need correction.

That's looking good!
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Post by DualJoe »

I guess I'm just having problems getting my head around the concept of aspect-ratios and when they do and don't apply.

At least I'm certain I'm using the right references now and I'll continue with them.

Since this is a PU-project for now I'll open a WIP-thread over at the new PU-forum.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

DualJoe wrote:I guess I'm just having problems getting my head around the concept of aspect-ratios and when they do and don't apply.
1st step: Forget about them.
2nd step: VGA mode 13 was 320 x 200, which is a 8:5 pixel ratio; but the screen size was typically 4:3 ratio. So, pixels were stretched vertically, so in many cases artists would draw or paint things squat, so that they'd look right in VGA mode 13. That's why all the faces in Privateer look squat (too "round") when you look at the original 320 x 200 screens: because they knew the monitor would stretch that vertically. But today, you open those screens in Gimp, and Gimp shows you square pixels, and things look squat.

But now, artists didn't ALWAYS correct for mode 13 deformations. The only way to tell is by looking at the stuff. Does it look squat? Then it was corrected, which means it has to be de-corrected :D
It's a judgment call.
At least I'm certain I'm using the right references now and I'll continue with them.
Good!
Since this is a PU-project for now I'll open a WIP-thread over at the new PU-forum.
Good idea.
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