Hello & suggestions!

[targ collective]

Yes! Now that is a good idea! And it wouldn't be all that hard to code, either. Just don't ask me to do it, I knew barely enough to make that last suggestion.

EDIT: Congrats! You've reached your 5,000th post!

[Zool]

I fully agree in downshifting the capship-values, especially concerning cargo values. We shall see how this eventually affects fighter values, but anything is better than being able to buy the confederation after 10 minutes, though.

Fear not my friends, I have taken this into account also. All the ship masses have been adjusted as well as cargo holds. You will still be able to put a few smaller fighters on your Light Cap Ships. As Chuck said, the Drayman is about 80m in length, which is EXTREMELY small to be carrying any more than 2 or 3 at the very most light fighters, (unless they're clamped onto the hull externally). A standard Drayman will be able to carry 2xDemon or 1xCenturion. A Drayman with full cargo upgrades will be able to carry 3xDemon, similar for the CVL.

Great idea on limiting mission earnings......can anyone do it though?

[chuck_starchaser]

I have an ideal tax system I came up with in my youth; but I guess your question is whether someone can do it code-wise. No idea, but I just re-downloaded Tortoise SVN to try and get the sources and have a look around.
Long story with Tortoise. One day, about a month ago, I tried to shut down XP, and it only got as far as a black screen and seemed hanged there. After waiting a couple of minutes, I gave up and powered down. Next time I booted up I got an error report screen. Every time I opened "My Computer" I got that error reporting screen opening up, cryptically mentionin TSVNCache. Took me a while to figure out it was Tortoise. Hadn't used it in a long time. I finally got tired of the screen and uninstalled it. Now I downloaded it again and installed it and I get the same screen popping up...
Anyways, if I manage to get svn, and if I manage to compile, I'll have 3 things to look forward to implementing:
1) Per-ship armor stats with per-armor material multipliers;
2) Taxes
3) Shaders
Not necessarily in that order.
Plus too many other ideas I got over the years to even list here.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Also could one have Docking Fee's relating to the mass of your ship and extra fee's for refualing?

I'm not as thrilled about the down-grading of the Drayman. In all my playing of PR/PU i have only come across ONE other than the floaty-around-planet one. Can't remember it's name. They not that strong. I think Draymans should keep their phase shielding (i'm not sure if it was going to be taken away with in the first place) and limit the cargo space. You would need to add strength to the frame of a drayman, as from what i have seen it does not seem to be strong enough to support a turret. on the Dratman-Destroyer limit cargo space, speed, and turning as your making a heavier ship. to make a carrier also limit speed as i has the extra waight of extra ships in it's belly.

[Dilloh]

Great idea on limiting mission earnings......can anyone do it though?

I'm not sure, but didn't z30 manage to do that? I'll look up the original PU1.1b6 for that...

Also could one have Docking Fee's relating to the mass of your ship and extra fee's for refualing?

My favourite! Now where can we do THIS?

[targ collective]

One thing at a time. The armour facing project is likely to be a hard nut to crack - makes me wish I knew the language almost, but seeing 'Targ' shouted at me as part of the syntax all over the place would drive me mad - so let's see what we can do towards that before we look at the docking code.

Refuelling fees wouldn't be too hard to do - simply deduct a ratio of credits to MJs missing of SPEC capacitance in the same piece of code that fills her back up. Refuelling costs and such would rely on different fuel capacity and usage, so the first job would be to put the right figures in unit.csv. No idea what the figures should be there - are there figures in canon? Should we calculate by ship mass?

Costs by ship size are trickier. Either we hardcode that and update the code with each new ship, establish real scales ingame using a common ground like Chuck suggested and read the right value from unit.csv, or create a new cell in unit.csv which is used to control the docking cost.

Limiting mission earnings is very possible, as are taxes. I prefer the concept of limiting earnings by limiting the cargo which can be hauled, a more elegant solution. Progressive taxes can be implemented through a simple series of If statements, although I'm not sure how you'd go about declaring the holder for the deducted tax - or even if it needs to be declared...

If you're happy with a plain old-fashioned low-realism hard limit hack job, I reckon I could do that for you. What limit do you want?

[Dilloh]

One thing at a time.

The trade rework is currently Melonhead's project, so we won't pack that onto you.

Refuelling fees wouldn't be too hard to do - simply deduct a ratio of credits to MJs missing of SPEC capacitance in the same piece of code that fills her back up. Refuelling costs and such would rely on different fuel capacity and usage, so the first job would be to put the right figures in unit.csv. No idea what the figures should be there - are there figures in canon? Should we calculate by ship mass?

And here is the problem... docking fees are static numbers for all ships, exactly 50 credits, even if you land your Drayman on Delta Prime. There might be a script somewhere indicating the costs, but it is definetively not in units.csv. Same for the amount of fuel you have: Though there is a warpcost in units.csv, I don't know how to bring it in contact with the prices. But if we made that, modifing the warp cost and creating jumpdrives for fighters/capships would be the easiest solution.

or create a new cell in unit.csv which is used to control the docking cost.

Hmm... that could work. We need to find the script containing the docking costs and hope it is not hardcoded.

Limiting mission earnings is very possible, as are taxes. I prefer the concept of limiting earnings by limiting the cargo which can be hauled, a more elegant solution. Progressive taxes can be implemented through a simple series of If statements, although I'm not sure how you'd go about declaring the holder for the deducted tax - or even if it needs to be declared...

Are you familiar with Python? Btw taxes can be declared quite easy: Militia and confed costs, merchants guild subventions for bringing in supplies, war tax, ...

If you're happy with a plain old-fashioned low-realism hard limit hack job, I reckon I could do that for you. What limit do you want?

Difficult to say... I think even blowing up Kilrah should not bring more than 500000 credits. And if we reduced payments in a percentage value, we'd need to go down to about 5% (remember - you can make up to 30mil with a single paradigm run), that'd make trading with a smaller ship priceless.

Did you already find where to change payment amounts?

[targ collective]

I know absolutely nothing of Python save what I have observed in use, so for the fancy stuff (tax bands, variable cost limits) you'll need someone literate in these matters. I can easily add hard limits in dynamic_mission.py though, which controls the payouts; I know just enough to do that.

[Dilloh]

So again, does hard-limit mean a maximun payout in credits, or a payout value in percent? The first one would help us most.

[z30]

Downshifting the DraymanCVL seems to be a good choice for me - still the ship is z30's invention and I wonder what he'd say if it was that much rebalanced or taken out. Though I personally dislike it I say, I have objections, it is rarely seen in Gemini, only as Rangrior or mission spawns, not as flightgroups at all, nearly no chance to buy it (till now ) - still I might consider finding another purpose for the current DraymanCVL design (maybe a RF rebalance?).

I agree with you & Chuck - it should be rebalanced. It should either heavily turretted or a mini-carrier but not both. Original story line behind this was that the Merchant's League was creating it's own military force in anticipation of a civil war.

The Drayman CVL is probably better suited as a (cheap) mini-carrier, it's supposed to be complemented by a missile ship. Since the League would not have access to military capships, they would rely on a combination of gunships backed up by the Drayman CVL& missile ship to undertake hit-and-run raids.

Gosshawk made the Drayman CVL & the Galaxy GS btw - that's why both have so many turrets:)

That's the old storyline fyi, feel free to retrofit this Drayman variant to fit the new plotline.

I remember the WC1 drayman model - it'd make more sense if the militia used a ship like that one, for they might have access to the old junkyards of the confederation and refit those models.

Or pirates - assuming a more & more chaotic Privateer universe.

[z30]

But I wouldn't mind to see a "pirate boss" flying a Cent; what I would mind would be to see a homogenization of the Privateer Universe, whereby all ship models appear at similar spawn rates, and any faction flies any ship. It would make the univers unrealistic and BORING. There needs to be ships that are very commonly seen, and ships that are almost impossible to spot, and everything in-between; and ships that are only flown by one faction, and ships that are flown by many factions. Basic esthetic principle of having variety in the amount of variety. If you have too much variety, then you have too little variety of variety.

Cutlass ship first discussed below :

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index. ... 586.0.html

Then Spirit adapted it for WCU with this description:

From: spiritplumber
To: z30
Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:17 am
Subject: Re: Cutlass Quote message
Please do!


The Cutlass is a kitbash of Scimitar and Raptor parts that came about when a naval yard tasked with dismantling the aging fighters found out that it was a lot more profitable to buy scrap metal from pirates and sell them a fleet of unregistered ships without make-and-model ID. The ship is basically the front section of a Scimitar welded to the back of a Raptor, and no two are exactly alike as the work was done under the table. As a result, the shields aren't very well designed to fit around the hull and result flimsy for the power they drain, but the hull itself is extremely well armored.

Standard armament is four mass drivers.

====

This would give the Pirate faction a unique fighter while at the same time, make the Centurion rarer or restricted to the Hunter faction.

[Dilloh]

The Drayman CVL is probably better suited as a (cheap) mini-carrier, it's supposed to be complemented by a missile ship. Since the League would not have access to military capships, they would rely on a combination of gunships backed up by the Drayman CVL& missile ship to undertake hit-and-run raids.

Sounds fine, but here's a side question: Did anyone ever observe a working scramble on a capship? I mean will an AI-controlled CVL launch fighters then?

That's the old storyline fyi, feel free to retrofit this Drayman variant to fit the new plotline.

I already built a storyline around it, and the campaign scripting for it is done .

This would give the Pirate faction a unique fighter while at the same time, make the Centurion rarer or restricted to the Hunter faction.

Hmm... sounds like a nifty story for the pirates!

[chuck_starchaser]

Nice ship, this Cutlass. Do we have it already, or do we need a model?

[z30]

Nice ship, this Cutlass. Do we have it already, or do we need a model?

Just PMed it to you - the number of files in that directory looks sparse I'm afraid.

[chuck_starchaser]

No PM in my box... :-/
Gotta go to the bank; I'll be back later.

[Zool]

I like the look of the Cutlass, and the concept is fitting. I once saw a lot of this in a Freelancer/Star Wars mod. They hacked together just about everything, called them "Ugly's". X-Wing and Y-Wing hulls with every different Tie Fighter wing set on them visa versa. Some crazy stuff but cool looking ships. Just like the Cutlass. I think this would be a great idea for a heavy Pirate vessel.

Why are we having this same discussion in two threads simultaneously? This is going to get VERY confusing!!

[chuck_starchaser]

WRT prices balancing, not sure how useful this info is, but besides the prices in Privateer, there's a reference in canon regarding the price of a fleet carrier in 2668:

Bonus 68: How much did it cost to build and launch one fleet carrier around 2668 without fighters?

Answer: 73,000,000+ Confederation Dollars

LOL, never trust CIC info... I was just reading William Forstchen's Fleet Action novel and found the quotation that trivia question was based on (page 37):

"You just don't get the whole picture, do you Admiral [Geoffrey Tolwyn]?" [Rhonda] Jamison snapped. "Do you know just how much it costs to build and launch one fleet carrier? Seventy-three billion and some change. A full compliment of fighters, another ten billion." ...

[my emphasis]

Man that website sucks. What moron could write a trivia question looking at the book and not mind the difference between a million and a billion? Always errors everywhere... Should be called the CDC (Combat Disinformation Center)...

Maybe the cargo and profit figures weren't wrong after all...

And by the way, in Forstchen's Action Stations novel, there's two or three (repeated) references to a Wildcat fighter costing 50 million, which now make more sense. 10 billion / 50 million = 200 Wildcats; which is not the exact composition of a carrier's compliment but it works out within a margin of reason.

And this kind of makes sense compared to RL. You can probably buy a small civilian plane for 100,000 dollars, but you can't buy a fighter plane for less than 10,000,000 dollars. So maybe all this business of mil-spec this and that should go out the window. There'd be no such thing as a military version of a civilian craft. They are in totally different leagues.
Well, maybe not so much in WC as in RL, given that civilians have to fight pirates and even kats, sometimes, but still...

Cleaned up the cutlass mesh, it was a real mess...

[z30]

Man that website sucks. What moron could write a trivia question looking at the book and not mind the difference between a million and a billion? Always errors everywhere... Should be called the CDC (Combat Disinformation Center)...

Maybe the cargo and profit figures weren't wrong after all...

And by the way, in Forstchen's Action Stations novel, there's two or three (repeated) references to a Wildcat fighter costing 50 million, which now make more sense. 10 billion / 50 million = 200 Wildcats; which is not the exact composition of a carrier's compliment but it works out within a margin of reason.
And this kind of makes sense compared to RL. You can probably buy a small civilian plane for 100,000 dollars, but you can't buy a fighter plane for less than 10,000,000 dollars. So maybe all this business of mil-spec this and that should go out the window. There'd be no such thing as a military version of a civilian craft. They are in totally different leagues.
Well, maybe not so much in WC as in RL, given that civilians have to fight pirates and even kats, sometimes, but still...

Cleaned up the cutlass mesh, it was a real mess...

Sorry about that Chuck, didn't realize it was that much of a mess. It looks beautiful though even in it's unfinished state. People who opt for the pirate faction wont' regret not having a Centurion if they have this.

From the looks of it, the Cutlass would probably have less armor than the Cent but be more agile. If there was a disabler weapon (something like the Leech missile or an EMP) appropriate for this timeline, it would probably have it.

[chuck_starchaser]

The question of leech technology came up during brainstorming for the Priv3 project at the WCU forum. I think that what was said then was that leech technology was a secret confed project at this time, but that border worlds had somehow obtained it.
There are no references anywhere of pirates having leech technology; however there's a bar rumor in RF about the retros having finally got hunter toth, and the bartender says that they threw some kind of missile at his ship that disabled the engines.
In my Priv3 storyline, I came up with a plot whereby burrows obtains leech missiles from border worlds in exchange for recovering two corvettes that the retros stole from them and brought to gemini. However, spiritplumber later objected, saying that although border worlds had leech guns, only the confed had leech missiles.

But more generally I'd ask: Isn't giving a bigger and faster ship to the pirates enough? Why give it additional powers and weapons? Sounds like a recipi for creating an unnecessary imbalance; as well as something esthetically dicordant: Most pirates flying around the worst ship in-game, and then a few having an uber-ship, unless you're only going to give it to the really top pirate bosses, like you might only encounter this ship once or twice in the whole game.

Oh, yeah, I was going to ask. I got the cutlass file via Dilloh, and there was only a bfxm; no .obj file in there. But when I was saving it in my shippack tree, I noticed a cutlass there, and there was a wavefront obj there, so I opened that one; so the messy file I cleaned up may not be the one used for the current bfxm. If anyone has an obj of the cutlass in-game I could work off that one.

[z30]

But more generally I'd ask: Isn't giving a bigger and faster ship to the pirates enough? Why give it additional powers and weapons? Sounds like a recipi for creating an unnecessary imbalance; as well as something esthetically dicordant: Most pirates flying around the worst ship in-game, and then a few having an uber-ship, unless you're only going to give it to the really top pirate bosses, like you might only encounter this ship once or twice in the whole game.

Oh, yeah, I was going to ask. I got the cutlass file via Dilloh, and there was only a bfxm; no .obj file in there. But when I was saving it in my shippack tree, I noticed a cutlass there, and there was a wavefront obj there, so I opened that one; so the messy file I cleaned up may not be the one used for the current bfxm. If anyone has an obj of the cutlass in-game I could work off that one.

Touche - point conceded.

Got the cutlass from the shippack as well - yours might be more updated than mine (version 5.0)

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Well Spirit made it. When she comes back ask her about it. Unless you want to spend more time searching.

[Zool]

But more generally I'd ask: Isn't giving a bigger and faster ship to the pirates enough? Why give it additional powers and weapons? Sounds like a recipi for creating an unnecessary imbalance; as well as something esthetically dicordant: Most pirates flying around the worst ship in-game, and then a few having an uber-ship, unless you're only going to give it to the really top pirate bosses, like you might only encounter this ship once or twice in the whole game.

I couldn't agree more.