The goal of this thread is to coordinate development on our project codenamed HighSpace - a mod for Freespace 2 that will be a mashup between it and High Fleet. A description of how the mechanics of the two games could be combined is available in the first thread.
Who we have
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@FCfromSSC - 2D/3D artist
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@netstack - developer, tester, and suggester of great ideas
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@Mantergeistmann - writer
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Me - developer
Who we need
The more the merrier, you are free to join in any capacity you wish! I can already identify a few distinct tasks for each position that we could split the work into
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developers: “mission” code, “strategic” system map code
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artists: 2D (user interface), 3D (space ships, weapons explosions)
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writers: worldbuilding/lore, quests, characters
What we have
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Concept art for a long range missle cruiser, curtesy of @FCfromSSC
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A proof of concenpt for “strategic” system map we jump into on start of the campaign. It contains a friendly ship and 2 enemy ships, you can chose where to move / which enemy ship to attack.
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A somewhat actual-game-like workflow. Attacking a ship launches a mission where the two ships are pitted against each other. If you win, the current health of your ship is saved, and you can launch the second attack. If you clean up the map you are greeted with a “You Win” message, or “You Lose” if you lose your ship.
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A “tactical” RTS-like in-mission view where you can give commands to your ships.
Updates
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The System Map and the Tactical View got minor pimp-ups. The System Map now shows the ship names, and the Tactical View has a grid to help with orientation, draws ship icons if the ships are too far away to see, and draws waypoint, and target icons to give some indications of the ship's current goals.
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The System Map now supports Battle Groups, and the player is now in charge of one - the original GTC Trinity cruiser, and a wing of fighters.
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We now have “just in time” mission generation. Like I mentioned in the previous thread, the scripting API gives you access to the file system, so it was pretty easy to generate a mission file on the fly. This has some advantages over using a “blank” mission file and setting up the mission via the API, because not all mission features are exposed to the API. The most obvious example here will be how there's no longer an “extra” player ship, just the ones explicitly declared for the System Map (in the previous versions you'd be flying a fighter, even though in theory there were no fighters in the System Map).
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Thanks to the fighters and their current load-out it's actually not that hard to win the game at the moment. Your cruiser will easily dispatch the Shivan one, and as to the corvette, you can order your ships to run away, and take out the turrets yourself, then order your ships to attack. It will take a while, but with a defenseless enemy it's only a question of time.
What's next
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The System Map didn't get a lot of attention so far, so I'd like expand it. It would be nice to move around an actual star system, add camera movement, and split/merge mechanics for fleets.
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The Tactical View is somewhat functional, but still needs to give a player handle on what's going on, and better control over their ships. I wanted to add subsystem status, beam cannon charge status, and a handier way to give advanced commands.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
August Art Update 001 - Back in the Saddle
@ArjinFerman, I was opening a window to ask if you were going to post a new thread or whether I should start one myself when the notification popped. I've been waiting all last week for this!
Most of last month was taken up by personal commitments, so I got very little done on this project. What I did get done, though, was some sketching of ship ideas, and as of last Monday I've been back to work modelling them out with my evening art time. I'd like to preface this with a mention that we could probably use some more discussion about mechanics and setting; are we going to be primarily experiencing the game from a fighter, or a warship, or the fleet as a whole? What does gameplay look like? What sort of weapons do these ships employ? Are shields a thing? Those sorts of questions. I've been leaning very hard into crunchy hard-scifi for these, at least in terms of aesthetics, but I'm open to other approaches. My next post will probably be a conversation starter about weapons, tactical assumptions, and tactical/strategic gameplay concepts to get a better impression of what everyone's thinking.
A note on terminology: Judging from the Freespace modding documentation, they rate ships on the following scale:
fighter > bomber > Frieghter/Cruiser > Corvette > Destroyer > Juggernaut
...which is clearly stupid and wrong. I'm using the following scale, which is better because I made it:
Fighter > Strike/Picket Ship > Frigate > Light Cruiser > Heavy Cruiser > Battleship > Dreadnought.
...And anyone who disagrees can
fight memake their case using facts and logic.As always, all of this is open to revision as needed.
Concept - Interceptor
Pics Here
The idea here was a long-range interceptor, designed to patrol far from its home carrier to interdict enemy scouts and torpedo strikes. I'm imagining the primary armament as a bank of four heavy railguns mounted centerline in the fuselage, with rockets and missiles carried on the stub wings on either side.
As mentioned, I started this one when I wasn't sure whether we were going for an experience centered in fighters the way Vanilla Freespace 2 does, so this is probably a lot more detailed than we'd need for a warship- or fleet-centered experience. I'm also working on figuring out a workflow for these; I'm not sure if I want to go for full normal-mapping, or something less work-intensive and more stylized.
I'd rate this concept about 60% complete. A lot of the primary forms have been mocked up, but the stub wings are perfunctory and the reactor/main body is mostly just mockup. I'm going to wait on feedback before pushing it further.
Concept - Pursuit Frigate
Pics here, with annotations
This design is optimized for speed, with a secondary emphasis on alpha-strike firepower; Armor is virtually non-existent, limited to a minimally-reinforced bulkhead and the reactor cap. Armament is a single heavy railgun (and possibly a small salvo of externally-mounted torpedoes). The hull is stripped down the the absolute minimum, a skeletal framework to hold the components together against the high-G forces generated by the drive. Secondary drives provide enhanced maneuverability and short bursts of additional speed. Frigates like this one are designed for perimeter defense and short-range interdiction, not extended patrols. Note the fighter in the lower-right corner of the bottom picture, for a sense of scale.
I'm aiming here for the bottom end of the warship scale: the cheapest, lightest ship I could think of while maintaining a plausible mission. I like the feel of the lattice hull, though I'm not sure how well it will render at range in-game. I'm hoping I can massage it into something workable.
I'd call this concept something like 80% complete; I'm not happy with the tail-end, and want to rework it some to get a better shape, with the exterior frame closing back in to connect to an extended drive.
Concept - Patrol Frigate
Pics here, with annotations
This is a well-rounded frigate design, intended for long-duration patrols around the outskirts of a system. It's much slower than the pursuit frigate, but with better armaments, better amenities, a much greater range, better armor, and a more balanced (though admittedly lighter) main armament. It's considerably more expensive than the previous ship as well, but it's a far more versatile hull in the bargain. The hull is built on a heavy-duty framework surrounding a core hull spindle, with modularized mission packages mounted above and below. This allows the base hull to be easily refitted or upgraded to match the ever-changing mission requirements of the end-user. It might not be glamorous, but it's a solid workhorse design that will generally get the job done. Again, I've added a fighter for scale.
With this one, I was aiming for the most average light warship possible, the M4 sherman of space. Not sure what else to say; it's a good, solid ship.
This concept is about 60% done. I started working on this one after halting work on the fighter over poly-count concerns, and misremembered the poly-budget for light warships, so this one ended up rather under-detailed and over-optimized. i still like the general shape, and want to come back and spruce it up a bit more once I get some feedback.
Concept - Light Missile Cruiser
Pics here, with annotations
(For completeness' sake, I'm reposting this design from last time in the same format as the other ships.)
As seen previously, this is a light missile cruiser, intended to hang back and launch heavy salvos of anti-ship torpedoes from extreme range, then retreat under cover of its escorts before retaliation can arrive. It's optimized for standoff firepower, with minimal armor mainly offering protection against fighter-class weaponry and a hull stuffed with large torpedo magazines, so a direct engagement against other warships or even strike ships is likely to go poorly. It does mount a powerful sensor array, allowing it to detect and target enemy ships from extreme ranges. The hull design is adaptable, with conversion to a pocket-carrier being one of the more common variants encountered, but the relatively weak drive makes gunship conversions a poor option.
Please, refrain from TOOB comments.
This concept is probably around 85% done.
Compilations
It helps to see the ships together, to get a sense of scale.
Of course, the above designs are on the low end, from a fighter up to a light cruiser. What about the high end?
Here's my initial noodlings on a supercap ship, probably in the dreadnought range, with a few of the lighter ships around it for scale. This one is probably more like a 30% concept, just roughed in, but the idea is a center-mounted battery of supercap-scale heavy railguns, with banks of very large anti-ship beams/other guns running down either side of the hull, top and bottom. ...Not sure what else to say about it; it needs more work, and probably some more development of the story and general feel we're going for. I'm of two minds on the general design. I kinda like it, and kinda feel like it's too symmetrical. I might try cutting it in half, flipping it 90 degrees, and fitting some more elements on top of it to make a more interesting design. I dunno.
Okay, that's it for now. Thoughts, feedback, and terminology disputes are welcome. What's the proper way to handle ship-class nomenclature? Should the term "dreadnought" bring to mind "really big, overwhelmingly powerful ship" or "obsolete ship from three generations back"? Let me know what you guys think. Sorry all this is still in grey-box mode; I wanted to get some actual ships designed before I dug into getting them set up in-game, much less texturing and modelling. If it's annoying, I might try some quick render-paint-over shenanigans.
Impressions.
Interceptor: Seems to strongly resemble a rotor-less attack helicopter, which gives off a slight uncanny valley effect. And why is the cockpit so far forward? To give the pilot a wider field of view? Engine appears a little underproportioned for what I assume should be a very fast craft - but you said long-range, not high-speed, so maybe my expectations are wrong. Overall looks cool, wouldn't mind flying it.
Pursuit Frigate: I did not expect that. A flying truss? Well, why not! But that's a lot of ship for something barely armored. I guess it works out by real-world rules where you don't get shot at all the time, but I would not be comfortable flying escort for that in Freespace! By Highfleet rules it would work out though. Also, the tanks are obviously drop tanks, yes? Yes?
Patrol Frigate: Looks like another piece of public infrastructure - in other words, very Highfleet! I like it. Simple, unassuming, utilitarian, like one would expect a medium-size mainline ship to look, and it wouldn't be strange to see many of them. Nice combination of round and blocky shapes. And that cheeky cocked sensor is a nice touch.
Light Missile Cruiser: As previous said, very nice. I have almost no complaints here. Given that it is neither fast nor very armored, how does it defend itself against long-range missile strikes? Fighter cover, EW or anti-missile missiles? I don't see any point defenses on the hull.
Size Comparison: It's been a while since I played Freespace, but where the scales of ships really that much different? Fighters appear very small in that comparison, and those small-to-medium capital ships appear very large. Does the engine support that? If so, no complaints.
Supercapital: Makes me uncomfortable. So many resources in one basket. Also, I'm getting StarSector pains form seeing a ship with a giant hole in the middle. Does the hole do anything? The gantries suggest as much, but it still looks like an aesthetic flourish better suited to a yacht and completely unjustifiable on a warship that big. Apart from the giant glaring hole, the silhouette looks good. If the ship is that big in order to house the biggest railgun possible, then why not make that spinal gun longer by utilizing more of the space behind it? But you say it's a bank of several, so I'm I guess that's not really the point.
On the general symmetry debate: Aesthetically asymmetry can work out, see the Vaygr in Homeworld 2. But as @cjet79 said, there should be some kind of visible justification for it - some large piece of machinery that requires asymmetry to house.
I like your designs. I thought the world of spaceship design had gone entirely stale, but here are some very unexpected ideas.
The stub-wings definately aren't helping there. I gotta work on that. I'm drawing a bit from M.A.K.'s Lunadiver Stingray, a (far superior) design that I'm a big fan of, but the forms need work.
That, and because there's a bank of railguns running along the underside of the fuselage, and the rear area is taken up by life support and capacitors. Also, because I thought it looked cool! Thinking about it, though, there's no reason not to go glassless and just bury the pilot down in the guts of the craft. They'd be safer there as well...
The gubbins on the back of the tail are the torch outlet; the engine is the egg-shaped mass the lattice-tail attaches to. The pipework running down the lattice is supposed to focus and accelerate the high-energy plasma output from the reactor, and the idea is that pushing the outlet back at the end of a long tail allows for a smaller, lighter shadow-shield to protect the rest of the ship from the radiation output of the torch exhaust. It's supposed to be a somewhat kludgy and awkward way to get higher performance without adding weight or cost. The downside would be that the system is effectively unarmored and is quite vulnerable to damage...
It's really, really small. The crew compartment is somewhere around the size of a large bus, maybe a trailer? Figure maybe 5-8 crew? It's also very fast, so it can try to do hit-and-run tactics with the railgun. But yeah, I was thinking more about how much fun it would be to shoot at; I definately wouldn't want to be responsible for its safety.
Could be, could very well be. It definately needs more fuel; I didn't leave room for much in the current iteration.
The idea is that it lobs missiles from extreme range and then runs away, relying on escorts to deal with pursuit or retaliation.
Those are missing from all of these at the moment; I need to design some and then add them in. All the ships should probably have them in some capacity.
The idea I was toying with was that the interior of the hole was essentially a dockyard for resupplying and possibly carrying lighter vessels. You're right that it's mostly there for aesthetics, though; holes in ships look cool.
Yeah, I was thinking of the primary railguns more as a saturation barrage weapon rather than maximizing single-hit power. At the scale of a ship like this, extra damage isn't the deciding factor, but you can't kill what you can't hit. The idea was that the railgun bank gives it a massive salvo of heavy shells, such that it can get hits even at significant range simply by throwing so much steel downrange that it can't all miss.
The "hard(er) sci-fi writer explaining away rule-of-cool art" answer is that this is already the case and the dome at the front is a sensor array.
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