Counters

capi3101

Admiral
Morning, all.

This is probably something that I should've looked for in this board before posting a new thread. Chalk it up to laziness if this has been brought up earlier.

A friend of mine and I are planning to run a game of TacOps here in a few weeks. I have an old SFB set that'll do just fine for the game and d6s out the wazoo, so that's not a problem. But I got to thinking that it might be pretty cool to make some actual counters for TacOps, ala the article at http://privatewars.kyth.org/making_your_own_counters.htm. My question is simple: has anybody done this for TacOps yet? If not, the design of the counters might be something on which I'd like some input from the general wingnut community (and the TacOps folks in general), with the ultimate intent to release the design to the general community. I've already compiled a list of the needed counters for the game as is (aside from the ships, I've identified the need for asteroid, flak and various missile counters).

So, how about it? Has this been done before?
 
Yes, it's been done before... :) I have a complete grid to print out with fighters and asteroids, which weighs in at around 25 MB. I also did counters for flak, missiles and all the other stuff. After all, I needed a prototype version to test run the game at home back then... ;)
If you search the forums, you should find downloads named "Fighter Counters," "Kilrathi Escort Pack," "Terran Warships Pack" and others. I think these were the first versions... I should be able to upload the new fighter grid to my server as well, if you're interested.
 
Ah. I kinda figured. Yes, I'm interested.

Ran across the Fighter Counters download from the TacOps Game Manual v0.1 thread...are those the ones you're talking about?
 
Is this already the version with underlying blue and red arrows and fixed fighter designations (like Bravo 1)? If not, I'll see if I can upload the newer version of those countrs.
 
I think so...it's a grid of 12x9, right column is nothing but rocks, six rows Confed in blue, six rows Cats in red. Two flights of four craft for the Confees, a flight of eight craft for each of the Cats. The fighters each have an equilateral triangle underneath them, a squadron designation at the bottom, TR number in the upper right. Top down aspect on all craft, of course.

Occurred to me that I might still want to do a counter set for myself for WCRPG eventually anyway; that's a conversation I'd have to have elsewhere, though. Can't say I've seen a lot of interest in WCRPG so far, so it may not matter that much.
 
Just to be on the safe side here, has anybody thought to do more WW2-style craft silhouettes (ala WC2) for any of the other craft in the WC universe?
 
You got the right grid there! As far as WW2/WC2 silhouettes go: If anyone has, I've yet to see them.

On a side note, don't let lack of initial interest in WCRPG scare you off. WCTO has come a long way, too, and people's interest (including my own) was often kind of an on and off relationship. ;) It usually gets better once you publish a "real" game manual, or when you can offer something to play around with (like Avacar has done with WCTOO). No matter how important or unimportant your project may turn out to be in the end, it helps keeping the WC spirit alive - and that's what really counts. This, and having fun yourself while creating it. ;)
Just my two cents...
 
You got the right grid there!
Alright; glad to hear it.

As far as WW2/WC2 silhouettes go: If anyone has, I've yet to see them.
Aw, darnit...more work for me...

On a side note, don't let lack of initial interest in WCRPG scare you off. WCTO has come a long way, too, and people's interest (including my own) was often kind of an on and off relationship. ;) It usually gets better once you publish a "real" game manual, or when you can offer something to play around with (like Avacar has done with WCTOO). No matter how important or unimportant your project may turn out to be in the end, it helps keeping the WC spirit alive - and that's what really counts. This, and having fun yourself while creating it. ;)
Just my two cents...

Thanks. I actually think I needed a word of encouragement there. Maybe things will pick up once I start asking for fan-based submissions...
 
Been making a few top-down silhouettes. The ones I've done so far are mostly from WC1, though I have done a couple from WC3/Wc4 and Armada as well. Some of them look a little ragged around the edges right now, but they should look really nice once they get shrunk down to their final size; they look pretty good as thumbnails anyway. Here are a few of my favorites so far.
 

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Yesterday turned out to be fairly productive; I can report that I now have a finished set of top-down silhouettes for most of the craft in the WC continuity, covering the period from WC1 through WC4. I even was able to get a set of top-down images for the WCP craft, thanks to the VDU images in the old ship's database; they're small but they should suffice for my purposes. Only images I'm missing are for the Theta-class base and Hades Battle Cruiser (I have a copy of Secret Ops on my home terminal, so I may still be able to get a hold of that one).

I am missing top-down images for the craft from Arena; would it even be possible to get those images of those ships?
 
Looking good! And I'd love to get some of these beauties into WCTO(O)... ;)
I think I remember a news page where someone re-modeled the ships from Arena (or extracted the Arena models themselves?). Maybe you can use those for silhouettes... However, I can't remember who it was. :(
 
Been searching CIC News...it was JasonRocZ. He was making models for the Collateral Damage mod, looks like. I also saw an extract of the models from Arena; I might have to try there first if I can get a good .mesh reader. Thanks for telling me about that.

And I'd love to get some of these beauties into WCTO(O)
I assume you're talking about the ships and not necessarily the silhouettes? 'Cause if you want to use the silhouettes, go right ahead. I was thinking about zipping them all up when I was finished and making them available for the community to download anyway.
 
Yeah, I'm talking about the ships, 3D models and all. ;) That said, I still think it's a good idea to make the silhouettes available to anyone!
 
Finished with silhouettes up through WCP...pretty sure I haven't missed any, anyway. Striking out so far on the .mesh reader, though I found one today that was current a couple of months ago, so I'm hopeful there. Hopefully I'll have them all later today.
 
I can report success tonight in getting some screenshots of the Arena models; OgreMeshy 1.4 seems to work. Even found/got screenshots of the Indomitable and Kiranka-class battlecruisers; occurs to me that some renders of those might be welcome by the WCPedia folks. In any case, I should be able to make silhouettes easily from what I got tonight, and hopefully have a full set for dissemination as early as tomorrow.
 
As a side note, if you are getting into graphic design, I don't want you to think that I wasn't following your crossbow conversion work or this work. If you can develop the graphics, and work out with Ironduke the correct stats, I would be happy to add in any new ships you guys want (as long as they aren't implementing features for which Ironduke hasn't developed rules yet).

Also, on the topic of graphic design, there are a lot of small WCTOO things that could be improved, like unique icons for each missile type, or improved asteroid icons.
 
Well, what I'm doing right now is more along the lines of silhouettes...pretty primitive as far as "art" goes, and nowhere near the same style as what's in TacOps so far. I'd probably be more apt to help out with stats for new craft. The WC1 craft in particular would go well in the game as it stands, I think, especially since most of the craft currently in the game are from WC2 and there definitely wouldn't be anything new added.

I have started doing more work with the silhouettes, by the way. Today my brain is buzzing with an idea for an all-out WC board wargame; still sifting through all the ideas there.
 
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