Phalanx Cockpit WIP

Mh what would it look like in green, blue or red? Mh well red would be more Kilrathi like I think.
If I had to chooce between the two I would go with orange.

An idea that just comes to my mind...what about changeable layouts? I mean that you could by the ship and then decide what color you would like to have...like a little custom upgrade. "Upgrade our HUD today with new color settings" something like that ^_^
Hope you get what I mean.
 
crossed my mind, too. but too much choice for the player is not always as good as it sounds :) I'd prefer a rigid "it is the way it is in Landreich sector" approach. the only way I see of having two layouts for the same ship is weaving them into the story. say, two different model lines of radars (theoretically installing a new radar can include changing the cockpit lights...) or - even better - two slightly different versions of one ship. a milspec version with smaller cargo hold but some extra fighting ability (a bit better speed, a possibility to install a higher class engine or an extra missile slot) - and a civilian version more suited for fedex runs. or a bonus ship bought from pirates. or just some border world design bureau that takes your standard issue tin can and makes it a work of art, for a price or as a bonus for a sub-campaign, - boosting some stats AND changing color of the inner lights :)
 
Shere Khan said:
a milspec version with smaller cargo hold but some extra fighting ability (a bit better speed, a possibility to install a higher class engine or an extra missile slot)
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Now, why would a privateer be flying milspec fighters?
 
Dyret said:
Now, why would a privateer be flying milspec fighters?
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They wouldn't. We've said many, many times that this "Milspec" idea is not something that's going to happen.

An idea that just comes to my mind...what about changeable layouts? I mean that you could by the ship and then decide what color you would like to have...like a little custom upgrade. "Upgrade our HUD today with new color settings" something like that ^_^
Hope you get what I mean.
Click to expand...
We simply can't allow it at this point. These textures are mostly baked into a few unified textures. This is what lets us get so much bang for our buck. They are extremely large - a single cockpit will take almost 8 megs of memory. Anyhow, doing more than one texture set per cockpit would take up a lot more memory than we're currently willing to give the cockpits as a whole.
As for the purple/orange questions, let me get something out of the way. The Landriech sector is just like any other sector. There's no reasonable logic that I can come up with to making color changes based solely on where the game takes place. Human tech is human tech. Doesn't matter if it's Gemini Sector or Landriech. If anything, the main difference is that the stuff in the Landriech sector will be older and a bit more run-down. I've been trying to reflect this in the ship's textures - giving them a worn, tired look. I don't think the displays in the ships would have changed all that much.
Is Phalanx the official name? It doesn't sound very Wing Commander (at least to me).
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The Phalanx is the name of the ship, not the game. The Privateer original fighter was called the "Centurion". So, you see, Phalanx is not far off from what has come before.
Anyway, I've come to a bit of a compromise of sorts on the colors. Take a look at the image below, and let me know what you think.
Enjoy.
 

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Bandit LOAF said:
Look closely at your Wing Commander I box -- the left VDU of the Raptor cockpit displays that it's armed with a Phalanx Missile.
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Wow, never noticed that before. Good catch! You think we should change the name of the ship?

Bandit LOAF said:
Where did 'milspec' come from in terms of Wing Commander? I'm not familiar with it outside of the horrible Privateer Remake non-fandom...
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I honestly have no idea. It certainly doesn't seem like a good idea, so I don't know why anyone would come up with it in the first place. Maybe the desire to be a bigger bad-ass in he game went a bit too far?
 
Wow, never noticed that before. Good catch! You think we should change the name of the ship?
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Naw, I don't think so -- unless, of course, you decide to have Phalanx Missiles in your game. Wing Commander repeats proper nouns all the time, I was just trying to show st3lt3k that it certainly wasn't a foreign term for the series. Heck, Secret Ops has a TCS Cerberus and Cerberus missiles...
 
Hmm. No, we weren't planning on having a phalanx missile. This actually leads to an interesting question: We were originally just going to name the missiles the traditional WC1 names - Dumbfire, Javelin, etc. Would it be a good idea to have different names? Same missile types, just different names?
 
Since entry dates for most of these missiles in the WCU predates the Kilrathi war, two of them at least - the other two are, the Spiculum, which entered service in 2633 and the javelin, which it's entry date is listed as 2650, but it's description states it was around from the 1900's - see Kilrathi Saga manual, so its not really necessary - these are the missiles names, on nicks or what-ever, for the better part of a century (and the KS manual only refers to the latest model of each missile).

On another note - FA novel mentions a dumb-fire projectile, which it's warhead is a large flechette effect - like a shotgun blast. May add it as a fifth missile - it can be useful for low maneuverability ships as a defensive missile against fighters and other fast marauders.
 
The fletchette missile sounds a lot like the Coneburst from WC4. How about a concussion missile that does half the damage of a standard dumbfire but has a large blast radius? In other words it will detonate when it comes close to an enemy without having to actually collide with the enemy, and damage everything (friend OR foe) within 500m or so. Good for tight clusters of enemies, but much weaker than the WC2 Mace.

As for the latest cockpit design, I like it, but I would increase the degree of fading-to-green on the fuel/energy level bars.
 
Howard Day said:
Anyway, I've come to a bit of a compromise of sorts on the colors. Take a look at the image below, and let me know what you think.
Enjoy.
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I think I like the more uniform color scheme better... and you really need to fix that horrible shape for the shield indicator. Its a big green blob that doesnt fit into the rest of the lines and contours. Its like someone sneezed on the dash.
 
I like the last cockpit design, though I'll go with AD on the shield indicator issue - It's too "greenish"- maybe tune it toward the blue -scale, like the jump full indicator. (more like the blueqwhite shield indicator on the the Raptor and Hornet)

also, I still think the struts are to low in the field of view...
 
no multiple color schemes for one ship? good! :) I just tried to imagine how to introduce both schemes into the game without giving the player the unneeded interior decorator rights. and, yep, the "milspec" idea is something from the priv remake; don't see any reason to oppose it or to defend it: it can be implemented into the story quite nicely - or misused as a cheap gimmick. it's all in the details.

as to the latest cockpit, the scheme is quite nice; as I recall, the jump fuel bar in Priv was mostly blue, too. do you intend to keep the new font, though? a word to the wise: it looks quite nice on the AUTO and JUMP indicators (they're familiar words and not going anywhere), but the changing numbers become hard to read in such a fancy type.

oh, and sorry for not registering earlier :)
 
I like the new colors. The break up is a good change. I was looking at the colors for the Centurion and was kind of wondering why yours was so limited. Hell, just the power gauge had three colors IIRC.
 
t.c.cgi said:
I like the new colors. The break up is a good change. I was looking at the colors for the Centurion and was kind of wondering why yours was so limited.
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Ditto. New look is great.
 
It's up to you whether or not to use the proper names. I would certainly use them for the specifically military missiles (and, of course, I would use the Kilrathi brand names for their missiles -- Claw, Fang, Paw, etc.). I would note that Privateer explicitly does *not* use the military brands of missiles -- whether or not you want to invent civilian types is up to you.

In terms of other missiles and in order to formalize some Action Stations-related things I mentioned on IRC at various points:

Nuke Mine: The nuclear mine is... well, a nuclear mine, dropped to destroy a pursuing enemy in a large explosion. It's a 'last ditch' weapon: owning one is absolutely illegal in policed human space (in fact, it is a capital crime), the cost is incredibly high (c50,000) and ultimately all you're going to do is get an enemy capital ship off your tail (and in so doing kill or disable it). The Nuke Mine has a brother, the Decoy Nuke Mine. The Decoy Nuke Mine is an empty case with trace radioactive materials -- which would be a cheap alternative that might trick a pursuing enemy to withdraw (but not ultimately causing any damage).

Seeker Missile (proper name, presumably): The Seeker Missile is available on the civilian market and is said to be "one of the most expensive launch weapons in a ship's arsenal". Seeker Missiles are as close to a "sure kill" as anyone can get: they're practically immune to chaff (Phantom drops five chaff pods, none of which distract the Seekers), they cause a huge amount of damage (a near miss from a Seeker cripples the Lazarus) and they and they have an afterburner that speeds them up at the last moment to avoid point defense weapons. They cost c250,000 - in terms of Action Stations' internalized economy, that's five Nuke Mines or over 100 tonnes of average cargo haul.

(My reccomendation would be to add them mostly for their value as opposing weapons... but make them available to the player just for the hell of it. If the player can spend 250,000 credits to easily win an assasination style mission, more power to him.)

The other 'Privateer style' upgrades mentioned in an Action Stations sequence are:

* Reverberator 3000C series engines (and then 3000E series, mentioned as being the most modern version in 2634).
* An extra half inch of durasteel armor ("laminated onto the pressurized hull").
* A Quad-Mount Auto-Tracking Laser in a Retractable Belly Turret

The cargo capacity of the Phantom (light transport) was originally 20 tonnes - it was reduced to only 2 tonnes with these particular upgrades - if you're looking for a baseline for cargo mechanics.


On another note - FA novel mentions a dumb-fire projectile, which it's warhead is a large flechette effect - like a shotgun blast. May add it as a fifth missile - it can be useful for low maneuverability ships as a defensive missile against fighters and other fast marauders.
Click to expand...

That was actually a type of defensive weapon (similar to a decoy) and not a missile. Fleet Action takes place some 15+ or so years after Pioneer, I believe.
 
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