Brainstorming upgrades!

Discuss the Star Trek mod(s) for the Vega Strike Engine

Moderators: tillias, Jennos, peteyg

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tillias
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Brainstorming upgrades!

Post by tillias »

Ok, guys! Now we can use upgrades in VegaTrek!
We can upgrade WHATEVER WE WANT: engines, warp speed, afterburner, shields, armor, hull, shields specific stats ( leak, recharge ), all kinds of energy system. abliative armor, unique upgrades, manueverness ( all kinds of stats - yaw, pitch, roll ) etc etc etc... We can make Diablo2 from VegaTrek now :-D

Oh, of course weapons! In all kinds, in all ways...
I can make it working easily.

But I can't produce FULL list of upgrades... Though noone will do this...

As starting point I want to discuss here what we need for first time, and what should be added next.
Last edited by tillias on Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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klyick
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Post by klyick »

Ok, Upgrades.

Here is a basic list of what I think you will need. I think I will be interesting if there are a large number of upgrades, probably like MW3 if you have played that.

Core Systems:

Life Support
Propulsion
Weapons
Sensors
Hull
Transporters
Shield Generators
Computer Systems(for targeting, transporting, using sensors, etc)


That is my basic list. Of course, each category would probably have 3 or 4 sub categories.

What do you guys think?

-Klyick
tillias
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shields.

Post by tillias »

Good!
But let's make discussion cone smaller.
Let's talk about shields and hull integrity systems and their levels.

Shield have those parameters. a) Capacity b) Leak percentage -- how much damage goes through shields c) Recharge time

As starting point I want weak shields for all ships...
So what do you think about this scheme:

4 directions of upgrades: one direction for a),b),c) and some complex upgrades, which improve ALL three parameters in complex.

The next important point is how MUCH upgrades do we need...
I can prepare 10-30 upgrades per ech category. Or can make inly 2-3.
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klyick
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upgrades

Post by klyick »

Looks good, I would think that 10 upgrades in that category would be appropriate. I could write up cool scientific explanations for each upgrade, like in EV.

It seems to me you could go two ways with the damage thru the shields. In the original series movies, shields would stop some damage from getting through, but certainly not all of it, even if they were on full.

However, in TNG, the shields would prevent all damage, provided that they were at full strength.

You could implement either, or if you wanted to get fancy, you could make it different for each class of ship, say old style upgrades for older ships, and newer ones for newer ships.
esgaroth
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Post by esgaroth »

Dont make too much upgrades at the beginning. I guess we will need 2 or 3 basic shields (I don´t think a runabout has the same basic shield generator as a galaxy class....) and upgrades for each of them.
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Post by esgaroth »

Dont make too much upgrades at the beginning. I guess we will need 2 or 3 basic shields (I don´t think a runabout has the same basic shield generator as a galaxy class....) and upgrades for each of them.
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Post by Gosshawk »

Considering the length between and timing of major ship upgrades in Star Trek, alot of upgrades might not fit in the universe. Eg, the constitution class and evolutions. At any given time, starfleet would have a gold standard for weapons with most ships being equiped with said weapons. Same with most militaries. The civilian market would of course be the exact opposit, but is there going to be a civilian path?

At worst, the various factions would have reserve ships and ships in quiet sector equipped with dated weapons. But even those ships would be only one or two generations behind. The frontline ships would be gold standard, and each empire would have a few cutting edge ships with upgraded equipment. By and large, these are military ships designed by military people for military people with a largly if it ain't broke don't fix it mentallity. It took the borg invasion to force the whole alpha quadrant to upgrade their ships, and create better ships. Hell, the Galaxy class did'nt recieve major upgrades untill the destruction of the Enterprise and the Odessy.

My point is that numerouse upgrades may not be fitting for this universe. But, it's just my opinion, and ultimately up to tillias.
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Post by tillias »

Gosshawk wrote:Considering the length between and timing of major ship upgrades in Star Trek, alot of upgrades might not fit in the universe. Eg, the constitution class and evolutions. At any given time, starfleet would have a gold standard for weapons with most ships being equiped with said weapons. Same with most militaries. The civilian market would of course be the exact opposit, but is there going to be a civilian path?
Sure. Lot's of civillian's, trading system, cargos, economics etc etc etc.
Not too fast though.
At worst, the various factions would have reserve ships and ships in quiet sector equipped with dated weapons. But even those ships would be only one or two generations behind. The frontline ships would be gold standard, and each empire would have a few cutting edge ships with upgraded equipment. By and large, these are military ships designed by military people for military people with a largly if it ain't broke don't fix it mentallity. It took the borg invasion to force the whole alpha quadrant to upgrade their ships, and create better ships. Hell, the Galaxy class did'nt recieve major upgrades untill the destruction of the Enterprise and the Odessy.

My point is that numerouse upgrades may not be fitting for this universe. But, it's just my opinion, and ultimately up to tillias.
Well, I mainly disagree. Yes, this info is awesome and it is from SarTrek Universe. This is show. This is how it is :)

But game isn't show. Game might be fun, poor, enjoyable, terrible. But game isn't show. And my goal is to make game better then show. Fantastics? No :-)

The only thing we can do together -- blow into it some life. I want to borrow one aspect from real life -- neverending process of advancing. People during their life all advance or distruct. They try millions of things, choose between thousands ways. Life is good when you have some set to choose from, or terrible if you can't choose. Or if applied to VegaTrek, game is fun, when you can choose, construct, advance all the time. Or terrible if you simply have to follow developers way. Even if this is the way of the warrior.

One more important aspect from life is chaos. There is no order in real life at all. People roll over things in chaotic movements. If there is no chaos, you'll have no reason to choose your way. Choose every minute, every second.

So, as conslusion.
1)You need to choose every moment while playing. You should make mistakes and fix them.
2)You need set, to choose from
3(IMHO))This set must be huge, to simulate chaos. In it's good meaning of course :)

Any suggestions?
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esgaroth
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Post by esgaroth »

I do agree with tillias. First, we finally will have a lot of civilian ships that will be everything from brand new to very outdated. Second, older ships do exist, we have seen them numerous times in the movies. And, btw, it is quite likely that older designs cannot be refitted with the most recent technology due to their limited capacity, and outdated reactors etc. Refitting everything on an old starship may be more expensive than creating a new one if judging from nowadays experience. So there are a lot of older spaceships, and instead of just throwing them away starfleet may sell them on the civilian market (stripped off the more modern weapons) or just use them for tasks where the most recent equipment is simply not necessary (courier tasks, science missions, resupply missions etc.). However, everything has a limit. I doubt that we will see a NX-01 in active service.....
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Post by tillias »

esgaroth wrote:Refitting everything on an old starship may be more expensive than creating a new one if judging from nowadays experience.
Good! But if there is no limitations in money, you can advance even Constitution class :)
So if you can earn a lot of money in VegaTrek... If you like Constitution or Defiant... Or D'Deridex... Or some old TOS ship... Why you can't refit it manually? Make it as strong and powerful as you wish?

Yes, this is irrational behaviour. But what to do if I want to see Constitution with good ( though precious upgrades ) in DS9 era? Money can do almost anything in real life, so let they play their role in VegaTrek also :)

So there are a lot of older spaceships, and instead of just throwing them away starfleet may sell them on the civilian market (stripped off the more modern weapons) or just use them for tasks where the most recent equipment is simply not necessary (courier tasks, science missions, resupply missions etc.). However, everything has a limit. I doubt that we will see a NX-01 in active service.....
Yes, we do have limits. Even very very updated Constitution class will never beat Galaxy or Sovereign. But at leas he can try :-)
And without good upgrades Constitution will die from one shot. This is terrible and makes no sense for me. Does it make any sense for anyone?

Why then I need old TOS ship or little DS9, VOY, TNG ones if I can simply work as trading bee, earn money for Negh'Var or Scimitar ( capships ) and forget about others? I think we should fix it this way as described. Each ship must be unique and strong in rational borders
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Post by klyick »

The whole TOS ships VS TNG ships thing makes sense to me. Its ok though, because perhaps you could do something along the lines of seperating the two in some sense, for instance, in SP you could have missions with the older ships only, like a older conflict or something. A similar idea could be used for a new ships/universe mission.

However, in a online persistant universe thing, which is where this is going eventually(i hope), that would not work. I'm not sure how you would deal with that.

-K
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Post by Gosshawk »

A lot of the older ships wind up sold to allies and even on the open market. The Klingons especially use older ships in their house fleets. They're outfitted as best they can, so the larger houses have better ships. That could be the civilian side for the Kilingons. The Federation sent mothballed ships to bolster defences of allied planets after the dominion war. Then there's the pirates, they use whatever they can get a hold of, and some even build their own. Of course most are not outfitted with the most recent equipment.

Basicly,IMO, The richest get the cutting edge, then the military standard, then militias one or two levels behind, then the civilians with whatever they can afford. Like has been said, there's only so much that you can do to a constitution before you hit a wall.
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Post by tillias »

Good point Gosshawk!
So pirates can drive those old ships. Really awesome information, because we are short in Orion ships ;-)

2klyick:
However, in a online persistant universe thing, which is where this is going eventually(i hope), that would not work. I'm not sure how you would deal with that.
I just wanted so say that good upgrades for old eras ships would cost humorious ammount of credits. Let it be 5 billion $$$ for one awesome Constitution deflector system. ( If compared to 200 thousands for new era Galaxy class deflector )

Not sure about credits though, just to compare two different era's ships ;-)

This will be suitable for all. Those who want realism -- make sure, that earning 5 bln $$$ isn't too easy. I will make process of earning money similar to life ;-)

And for real fans of some special classes I wil prepare sweetest thing they can only dream :)
For example for Constitution or D7 classes I will allow to make them as strong and powerful as new ships are ( like Galaxy or Valdore or something exclusively yours ). Just spend days while earning money and upgrading your ship. Though for fans this process will be really sweet :)
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Post by Gosshawk »

I wonder if maximizing the upgradeability of ,for example, the constitution and creating the various hulls would be a better way to go. Such as going from the Constitution class to the Enterprise class to the Invincable class. Make each evolution similar in price to a fully upgraded predassesor. (Man, my spellings getting bad) Have you played SFC3? Theres a few mods for it with huge quantaties of ships and info.
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Post by tillias »

Gosshawk wrote:I wonder if maximizing the upgradeability of ,for example, the constitution and creating the various hulls would be a better way to go. Such as going from the Constitution class to the Enterprise class to the Invincable class. Make each evolution similar in price to a fully upgraded predassesor. (Man, my spellings getting bad) Have you played SFC3? Theres a few mods for it with huge quantaties of ships and info.
Sure I've played SFC2, SFC3, Armada, Armada2. BC etc etc etc. Even Elite Forces ;-)

And what you said is good idea. I can allow to myself make 3 variants of D'Deridex class since we have three different types of textures, provided by LC Amaral ( e.g. 3 different models ). I can allow even Galaxy and GalaxyX variants.

But we stuck in other's. Yes, there is old Constitution, Constitution Mk2 etc etc etc. I understand what you are talking about. But I can't use 99% of SFC & BC models, because of permissions troubles.

To make different ships and avoid thousands of upgrades, we need many models. Perhaps it's my fault that I've prepared too big ships pack. But let's gave into it.

I can make different ships from one model. Just naming of them differently needed ( like Constitution variants ), some major distinctions in weapons, speed, mass, shields etc etc etc. And wait for bright future, when someone will make different models.

But I still do not understand what will be wrong with SFC3 ( which IMHO stuck if compared to VS engine ) , if I'll have added much more upgrades?
Much more levels for those Phasers, make really awesome and different descriptions/pictures for them? Do you remember those stupid 10 levels of phasers from SFC3 upgrading menu, which have similar description. Like hen's eggs :-D
I even don't want to remind that they look like eggs, sound like eggs, are feeled like eggs.

Just describe what would be wrong with this menu from SFC3 ( dialog ) if I simply customize it? Make it good?
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Post by Gosshawk »

I was just refering to the ships available is some of the mods in SCF3.

More models would solve alot of issues. Making use of the same model for different ships should not be a huge issue, especsially at this stage. Getting the balance and ships the way you want I think is more important. If the game progresses the way you want, people might start asking if you would put their models in. Never know.
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Post by tillias »

Gosshawk wrote: More models would solve alot of issues. Making use of the same model for different ships should not be a huge issue, especsially at this stage. Getting the balance and ships the way you want I think is more important. If the game progresses the way you want, people might start asking if you would put their models in. Never know.
So, "Variants" indead of "God ship's" paradigm? Closing eyes on shortage in models?
I like this idea. Let the people read it some weeks, and post here their opinion
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Ships

Post by klyick »

I don't know about making a original Constitution class ship powerful enough to do anything to a Galaxy. It would seem silly to have a very old ship capable of just smashing much better ships. Of course, gameplay and fun is key, maybe to accomplish this a super upgrade, like alien tech?

And what about this Persistant Online Universe thing?(referred to as POU from now on :) )

I know that VegaStrike supports this. How many system/planets will we have?

-K
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Post by Gosshawk »

As many as tilias wants.
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Re: Ships

Post by tillias »

klyick wrote:I don't know about making a original Constitution class ship powerful enough to do anything to a Galaxy. It would seem silly to have a very old ship capable of just smashing much better ships. Of course, gameplay and fun is key, maybe to accomplish this a super upgrade, like alien tech?
Sure. Like special upgrades for Deflectors to avoid Breen's super-weapons...
BTW, if you want, I can teach you how to make upgrades ;-)
This isn't too hard, only image and textual description.
And what about this Persistant Online Universe thing?(referred to as POU from now on :) )
We've just talked about it. Read above. If you want hardcore Constitution class, then you should throw it away ( when you'll have money of course ) and buy some Constitution refit. Let it be named as Constitution Mk2 or some other. It is more powerfull then original star class, though weaker then another refit. And so on. Refits instead of God Ships.

Though I will allow to upgrade ships by 100% advance to all systems. Or maybe 150-200%. E.g. shields will grow to 100-200%, armor etc etc etc.

And forget about god ships. Original Constitution has 1500 shields. Sovereign has 11000+ shields ( in units ). Once upgraded it will have 2500-3000 shields... Scheme like this...



[qoute]
I know that VegaStrike supports this. How many system/planets will we have?
-K[/quote]

We need people to work on StarSystems. Even textual descriptions will be great help to all of us. Theoretically we can make billions of star systems...
But we need to construct homelands first time. For Federation, Klinogn, Romulan, Breen, Dominion, Cardassia, Ferengi. Later in future for borg.

Contact esgaroth if you want to help
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