Behold, fellow AWACS/ISO members!

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:58 am

Hmm, so it does. I sit corrected. I still like the idea of space commies though

mat_yarrow · Post by **mat_yarrow** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:53 am

I think that the problem with Vega Strike 0.4.3 was the lack of plot missions and the shortness of the campaign. After Deucalion completes the jobs given out by the gangster (just about the only viable campaign path, in my opinion; given that the IntelSEC branch is nearly impossible to successfully complete), there were no more plots to hold the player's interest. The Privateer, Righteous Fire, and branching bonus campaigns at least served to keep the game interesting in the Remake and WCU, even if it can be argued that they are merely the same basic missions strung together by a storyline.

Even if there were many factions, if each faction had its own unique plots and campaigns that distinguish one from the other and add greater depth to the storyline, the game would probably have more of a following and a longer lifespan.

Fireskull · Post by **Fireskull** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:02 pm

Continuty does exist in WC. The 10 year gap is like the phony war in WW2 were neither side did much

I just find it a very curious coincidence that this gap happened in the -exact- time when Blair wanst flying.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:26 pm

actually there are 16 autogenerated factions, from faction_ships.py

confed=0
kilrathi=1
nephilim=2
merchant=3
retro=4
pirates=5
hunter=6
militia=7
unknown=8
landreich=9
border_worlds=10
firekkan=11
AWACS=12
kilrathi_insys=13
kilrathi_rebels=14
kilrathi_merchant=15

Will eventually add kilrathi pirates, probably. Do the firekkans need their own faction?

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 8:46 pm

Hrm...
Add a few new jump points to new systems.
Say that with new technology we have been able to find floating tails of wormholes to make into stable jump points.

BANG!

AWACS R Here.

Now you had a quiet system, or a MOSTLY quiet system. Suddenly it's a war zone.

Oooh...

You could go all sorts of places with that.

W.

Post by **mkruer** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 11:39 pm

spiritplumber wrote:actually there are 16 autogenerated factions, from faction_ships.py

confed=0
kilrathi=1
nephilim=2
merchant=3
retro=4
pirates=5
hunter=6
militia=7
unknown=8
landreich=9
border_worlds=10
firekkan=11
AWACS=12
kilrathi_insys=13
kilrathi_rebels=14
kilrathi_merchant=15

Will eventually add kilrathi pirates, probably. Do the firekkans need their own faction?

Actually there are 23 (correction, 25) official factions directly from the WC timeline. I collected this information over a year ago. Too bad this forum suffers from so much amnesia that they donâ€™t remember that all of this was already defined.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... c&start=15

Kilrathi are Clans, and as such each clan has is its own cast.
One clan would be an outcast i.e. pirate/rebels what ever you want to call them.
One clan is a merchant cast,
One clan is a religious cast,
One clan is the ruling cast,
Etcâ€¦

Firekkan is already a know faction in real real faction list made back in Jun 10, 2004.

Autogen factions are fake, something made up because people are too lazy to do their own research to find that the answers where and are, already there.

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:17 am

I had checked that list, and, well, is it REALLY nesscessary(sp?) to add the individual clans for the kilrathi? Plus, kilrathi rebels and the society of mandarins wouldn't really be major factions after the war. Note that I said AFTER. The mandarians might still exist, but they wouldn't have anything to really DO. And the kilrathi rebels, well, they just won, seeing as how the war is over. The rebels would be replaced by the pirates mentioned in Prophecy, and the space commies could take the place of the mandarans(in place, not function) And something like the zoners, that would be rockin.

Post by **mkruer** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 11:46 am

The overwhelming point I was trying to make is that there are enough factions to work with without resorting to making up new ones.

Its true that the Mandarins might be an over statement for factional power, but arguably they were just as powerful as the retros, and considering that timeline is pre end of war, its likely that the group will exist to some point in the future.

Also of interesting note, I did not include the â€œblack lanceâ€

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:00 pm

hmm... when i say "Faction" I mean it in the strictly developer sense. As in, a faction is something that can spawn ships.

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:03 pm

If AWACS was to exist it still would not receive factional status, and most likely would be placed under one of the existing groups such as Oasian Nutral System, Free Republic of the Landreich, or the Grovsner Colonies. which ever existing group fits with the idea of AWACS the best

I can totally live with that.

Onto you question about the individual clans for the kilrathi. Each Clan was assigned a region of territory and fought for that region. After the destruction of Kilrah, most of the clans blamed the Thrakâ€™hra clan for the defeat and surrender to the confederation, and as such the Thrakâ€™hra became the new outcast. Also the idea of including all the clans was to have the rough equivalent of the factions that the Terrans have. The Cult of Sivar would have been the equivalent of the Retros for instance.

But we aren't playing as kilrathi

. Still, I have no real problem with it.

Mabye if a multiplayer function is developed, AWACS could be a players only group.

powell99 · Post by **powell99** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:24 am

Well. mkruer is right. You dont want that many factions it just gets overly complicated.
Also blue_paladin. If you really have that many problems with WIng Commander *why* do you want to work on this? Also your project has a great deal of potential. Hell start a thread up and I can answer most is not all the questions you have. Space Commies is a completly asinine Idea that a bunch of 7th Graders would come up with. Also why have polotics in the game. In freelancer who actually reads every news paper. Nobody plays a space sim for polotics. Leave that to the Strategy games, who do it amazingly well.

I'm telling you look at the CIC, read the books, and read the damn forums. They have the best source of information. Research EVERYTHING and show some attention to detail. Don't go making crap up because you think it should be in there.

Finally, and most importantly, reestablish relations with Cirus posters. We (crius members) are the largest collection of Wing Commander Fans out on the net. When you make the mod, make it for what people at the CIC think it should be like i.e. Standoff, probably the best mod out there.

Even if you don't give a damn about what I say at least pay attention to this: AWACS Stands for Airbourne Warning and Control System, change the name.

Sorry for the swearing but, It gets my point across

If there is any Space Commie group there no faction that goes along with it. The Confederation Turns into something alot like a military dictatorship at the end of the War. Other than that you should drop the idea.

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:25 am

I don't have any problem with wing cmmander.

I just thought the idea was cute, and became rather enamored with it.

And why should CIC be the absolute authority on all things fanmade? I know its a big fansite, but sheesh.

Your right about the name thing. I didn't even notice until you said that.

Post by **mkruer** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:14 am

I also have issues with the name. for the longest time ever time some mentioned a AWACS missions I was like â€œcool you have to fly a mission and only rely on you buddies to protect you.â€

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:32 pm

WRT Works for me.

WRT: BTW Thats what I'm saying.

WRT: BTW2 I thought it was just flying their ships.

WRT: BTWx2 What new ships?

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:38 pm

the AWACS had a ship called the Hammer which had been lifted from vegastrike -- i'm fairly sure that the model is still there. Now IIRC they just fly Tarsuses with extra armor and stormfires for their "heavy" ship, the "light" ship still being the stiletto-with-red-markings.

You do occasionally get to escort a SWACS if you take a mission from a confed base

Post by **klauss** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:53 pm

powell99 wrote:Well. mkruer is right. You dont want that many factions it just gets overly complicated.

Not necessarily. In Freelancer, there were zillions of factions, and just a couple of factions at the same time. Basically: lots of them were just corporations. So, in my mind, I only saw: Corporation, Corporation, instead of BMG, BWE. In the end, there were: Corporations of X nationality, Military of X nationality, Pirates of X nationality, Wackos of X nationality, Junkers, Zoners. Think is, there were groups within those groups. It made it look more real.

powell99 wrote:Space Commies is a completly asinine Idea that a bunch of 7th Graders would come up with.

So... you're capitalist.
Really... what's so strange about communism in space? Is the MIR station a completely asinine idea? (they were communist at a time, you know - just not now).

powell99 wrote:Also why have polotics in the game. In freelancer who actually reads every news paper. Nobody plays a space sim for polotics. Leave that to the Strategy games, who do it amazingly well.

Freelancer's papers weren't interesting. If they were, I would have read them all.

powell99 wrote:Don't go making crap up because you think it should be in there.

Why not? You, as capitalist, should understand the laisez-faire above all.

powell99 wrote:Finally, and most importantly, reestablish relations with Cirus posters. We (crius members) are the largest collection of Wing Commander Fans out on the net. When you make the mod, make it for what people at the CIC think it should be like i.e. Standoff, probably the best mod out there.

Hm... if someone does something, he/she should do it the way he/she thinks it should be. What you say is simply the dictatorship of the masses. That sucks.

powell99 wrote:Even if you don't give a damn about what I say at least pay attention

Sorry for the edit... but I do agree with that. We will listen to your comments. But we (or at least I) won't give them less than full critical thought. If what you say makes sense, we will heed your advice. If not, we will not. And, with space commies, you're not making sense.

powell99 wrote:AWACS Stands for Airbourne Warning and Control System, change the name.

Hehe... I also thought so, and got a little confused by that name. But, in the end, it turned out funny. I like the misleading name. But, I agree, that's just me.

powell99 wrote:Sorry for the swearing but, It gets my point across

No. Reasoning gets your point acrooss, or would, much more efficiently.

powell99 wrote:If there is any Space Commie group there no faction that goes along with it. The Confederation Turns into something alot like a military dictatorship at the end of the War. Other than that you should drop the idea.

I really don't understand what you're saying there, but it sounds like an actual idea. Please clarify.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:30 pm

Question... the AWACS plot already exists and is essentially complete (although the dialogue could use looking at perhaps). The phyton file, being self contained, is also a GREAT template for a subplot that branches.

So how about we keep it for now? Disabling it is trivial. I personally like it, except that I don't know if Demetria is playing Burrows for a fool by flirting with him or if she's actually interested...

it is kinda estabilished that burrows DOES NOT GET LAID afterall

I personally would move the AWACS plot in another sector and make sure it happens post-war, but that's just me -- at least this "covers" an extra sector subplot wise".

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:18 pm

Poor Burrows lol. Is it possible to join AWACS, or ISO? And what, if any, faction would equivilate to zoners. Mabye I should stop mentioning zoners

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:45 am

hmm... guess zoners do need a faction.. you would end up finding lots of pirates there in general tho. i also expect some merchants.

powell99 · Post by **powell99** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:52 am

klauss wrote: So... you're capitalist.
Really... what's so strange about communism in space? Is the MIR station a completely asinine idea? (they were communist at a time, you know - just not now).

Why not? You, as capitalist, should understand the laisez-faire above all.

Hm... if someone does something, he/she should do it the way he/she thinks it should be. What you say is simply the dictatorship of the masses. That sucks.

Sorry for the edit... but I do agree with that. We will listen to your comments. But we (or at least I) won't give them less than full critical thought. If what you say makes sense, we will heed your advice. If not, we will not. And, with space commies, you're not making sense.

powell99 wrote:AWACS Stands for Airbourne Warning and Control System, change the name.
Hehe... I also thought so, and got a little confused by that name. But, in the end, it turned out funny. I like the misleading name. But, I agree, that's just me.

powell99 wrote:If there is any Space Commie group there no faction that goes along with it. The Confederation Turns into something alot like a military dictatorship at the end of the War. Other than that you should drop the idea.
I really don't understand what you're saying there, but it sounds like an actual idea. Please clarify.

Okay well I'm going to adress these in numerical order.
1. I fail to see how I think about governments contributes to this conversation. I do not think MIR was an Asinine Idea, I think that your way of adding communists has been done in a half heartedly way.

2. I'm a Federalist in the 18th Century sence. Here is where I am coming from, I agree with creativity belive me. However, I think if you can do it really well. I mean really well, and it keeps the WC feeling, I think thats beyond great. For me and the people I discussed it with, we feel that Space Soviets, while fun (anyone remember Activision's Battlezone) does not keep with the WC feel. Afterall WC wasn't politicaly oreinted.

3. The big one. WC news members represent the core of WC players. They are the ones who nowadays will play a WC related games. You can get a bigger audence that way. While I don't say that you should do everything they say, I am sure they have some interesting ideas. (afterall I had some fun and flew arround in a WC3 Destroyer). Anyways I am sure you can get some nice suggestions. Also a dictatorship of the masses is closer to a democracy. I know someone said that I just cant figure out who.

4. I will try to be civil. I was saying that Space Commies dont have a WC feel. However, I understand your team takes a higher priority than some angry outsider such as my self.

5. Really the name takes away from the aspect of commies. Now if you have something like the "People's Army of X' that would be a better communist name. Once again its about the WC feel and the Communist Feel.

6. Okay I read somewhere the Space commies would make more sence if they were attached to an already existing WC group. I was saying that the only faction that resembled the Communist Party was the Confederation during the closing parts of the war. Even then that was just marshal law. Now you could make a group of military hardliners that wants the military to be in control of the Confederation.

Now on to spiritplumbers posts.
I think you all should stay away from the main character being burrows. There is a Privateer Remake, that should be enough. I thought that the WCU project was about you playing as you in the WC Universe. Also getting laid or anything with getting laid. was never the start of a good story. That sounds like the start to a bad space porno. Actually I doubt if there is a good space porno.

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:01 am

1. I am not WC news affiliated and I am a rabid fan. I am saying this to point out that not all series fans are WC News. 'Nough said about that from my end.
2. How is a dictatorship closer too democracy? Seriously. Tell me.
3.Peoples army of X does have a nifty ring to it. But I also kinda like ISO.
ISO vs. PAOX hmmm
4. Actually it might make more sense for the space commies to exist everywhere. But not really have "factional" status except for spawning ships. If you think about it, really capitalist sections of space like Gemini, far from the main government, would have a communist party. The frontier wouldn't have as many laws governing big corporations, and wouldn't enforce the ones they did have. Just look at the whole deal with Palan in the main plot. If the other corporation hadn't set up a resistance when it did, it would be ideal AWACS fodder.
5. I think spiritplumber was referring to PR, not WCU. And i think Spirit was joking. I think.

Oh and about WC feeling. Uh, what exactly does that mean? The main story was about wartime, whether it be the kilrathi, border worlds or so forth. Since WCU is completely free roaming, that becomes a wee bit moot. In so far as you don't join the military anyway. And if you do, then space commies won't be an issue then.

mat_yarrow · Post by **mat_yarrow** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:55 am

powell99 wrote:I think you all should stay away from the main character being burrows. There is a Privateer Remake, that should be enough. I thought that the WCU project was about you playing as you in the WC Universe. Also getting laid or anything with getting laid. was never the start of a good story. That sounds like the start to a bad space porno. Actually I doubt if there is a good space porno.

I assume that the Privateer Remake campaigns were included in WCU by default mainly for testing purposes. Since WCU is still under development, any bugs that break campaigns or missions can be easily discovered if changes produce unintended anomalous behavior that is irreproducible in PR.

On the issue of space porno, girls riding giant cocks

may not be for everyone and badly written space porno (a few escape velocity mods come to mind) detracts from what would otherwise be a good game, but WCU supposedly provides an easily modified framework for Vega Strike mods set in the Wing Commander universe along with ships and technology spanning the Confederation-Kilrathi war. If someone is to make space porno in the Wing Commander setting, WCU could be the place to start, although currently without support for cutscenes or movies, it could be quite a challenge.

(I know, those could also be giant hens, but then it wouldn't be as funny. Yessiree Bob, sure gotta lot o'mileage off this one.)

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:07 am

LOL!!!! good one....

re space porno: what I meant is that in the original Priv/RF storyline, Burrows hits on everything even remotely female, and gets shot down every time -- Demetria in the AWACS storyline however seems interested, which I felt is a break from tradition

either that or, more likely, she's leading him on since AWACS missions don't pay much.

Again: Usually when it's me saying "faction", I mean it in a pure game sense; a faction for me is an entity specified in faction_ships.py which gets to launch fighters, own systems, and have a friendship rating with other factions. For example, in the game there is a mini-faction for a lot of people -- Miggs, Kroiz and Seeling for example. That doesn't make them major political players

Fireskull · Post by **Fireskull** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:41 pm

2. I'm a Federalist in the 18th Century sence. Here is where I am coming from, I agree with creativity belive me. However, I think if you can do it really well. I mean really well, and it keeps the WC feeling, I think thats beyond great. For me and the people I discussed it with, we feel that Space Soviets, while fun (anyone remember Activision's Battlezone) does not keep with the WC feel. Afterall WC wasn't politicaly oreinted.

The first three WC games werent politically oriented, prophecy wanst either, but Price of Freedom was all about politics and ethical decisions. There is no reason to not have such things in WCU.

I agree with what was being said earlier by other people, we do have plenty of material to work with and dont need to add more factions, but I dont agree with anything that you have been saying.

It seens to me you have the completely wrong perspective, no offense meant.

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:24 pm

As far as I know are origin and the official WC-World dead. There won't be any other new games and so, unless the creators of the original games have a problem with it, we are free to do with WC what we like.
And new stuff is not necessariely bad stuff. For example: I never played WC 1+2, I started with WC3. When I then played WC4, the whole borderworld stuff was completly new to me. But I had never thought... hey, that's not WC like. And, I guess, if the socialist thing was part of an official game, you wouldn't say that it's not WC-like either....