A day in the life of Mr. B

Eder

Mr. Standoff
Here's a nifty series of screenshots that Quarto took while playing one of Episode 2's missions (split across a few posts due to forum restrictions). It's a nice example of an average day in the life of everyone's favorite british main character:


Wake up, have some Lynch Cola for breakfast, read some e-mail, then on to the briefing room.


Hop into a Gladius, fasten seatbelt. Take care to not hit the ceiling on your way out.


Help those Rapiers soften up the escorts a bit - you might even impress your ex with that well-placed particle cannon hit.


Get a good, clean view of momma kitten - seems like one of your mates already took care of the engines, and another mate just took care of getting himself flaked beyond repair.


Let the whiners break off their attacks while you just keep doing your job. Time to leave your mark on that bridge.
 
Continued, part 2 of 3.


Damn, you seem to have misplaced your sunglasses again.


Bit too late to be getting all shaken up about it, kitty.


Job's done. Just turn around and head on home now.


Or maybe take just one more look at your handiwork.


Here today, gone tomorrow: life onboard a Navy vessel. Just when you were thinking of checking out the local pleasure planet.
 
And the last one... (if you have the forums set to reverse order, scroll down and start from the beginning! :p)


So much for the great outdoors for today. Mind your head on the way in, you don't wanna embarrass yourself in front of the rookies like the other Mr. B in his Ferret.
 
Wow, looks great as always guys. And god damn, that flight deck is really really really small....should be interesting to attempt landings manually on that one.
 
Pretty cool series of screenshots. I just wish that Ralatha could be a bit more banged up after you pump two torpedoes in it... But I guess that's how the Prophecy engine works.
 
It could look better by having a different model used for the destroyed components, rather than just different textures (this was underused even in WCP/SO).

But when you count the number of capships we have on this mod and multiply it by the average number of components each capship has, you'll see that I'd have to make too many damn models. Possible, but not practical, unfortunately. :(
 
Eder,
That was a very effective set of teaser pictures, meaning that I am now even more excited about Standoff than I was before. They look absolutely wonderful. Is there any chance that you will give us another series of teasers soon?
 
Well, we'll see what we can do - however, these days most of our efforts are focussed on giving you something more concrete than a teaser - you know, like Episode 1, for example ;). However, we will see how it goes. We've gotten to the stage where we're ready to get two external testers (I'm afraid we've already chosen them, however - no need to volunteer, sorry :p). Once they start testing the game, they'll be able to post their impressions of it (the only thing we'll censor is if they give away any important plot elements ;)), which should give you a bit more idea about what you can expect.
 
Yeah, we should be getting some less biased opinions on Ep. 1 pretty soon. Like Q said, the only forbidden subjects for our testers will be a few plot points, but other than that, questioning them to death should be an effective way of finding out what to expect from our first release.
 
Eder said:
questioning them to death should be an effective way of finding out what to expect from our first release.
Just not, you know, entirely to death - we might need them later :p.
 
Hell, I've playtested and talked my head off. I'm sure my babblings have done a little bit of PR already. Now more people will know what I'm talking about when I say YOU WILL GET YOUR ASS SHOT UP in a Stilletto unless you pay CLOSE attention.
 
Quarto said:
Just not, you know, entirely to death - we might need them later :p.

Whew... :) As I told Eder, I´m getting my new computer this weekend and will be ready to *work* Monday.
 
Ah, interesting. I especially like the green background with the blue ringplanet.

On a short note, my work on Mr S. role is almost completed. ;)
 
Starkey said:
Whew... :) As I told Eder, I´m getting my new computer this weekend and will be ready to *work* Monday.
You better be! Don't think that we'll tolerate slacking off on this job. :p
 
Hmm... I know you said that creating models for destroyed components would be just way too much, and I can see that. What is the possibility of having a "destroyed" version of each capital ship? In other words, you just have the texture changes for destroyed components, but once the big boy goes critical, you switch to a model with missing engines, holes in the hull, and chunks missing (like the Fralthi II model in the first mission of Prophecy, or the wrecked civilian starliner in SO).

Really, capital ship destruction was my only big dissapointmnet with WC:p. It just didn't feel like I had really done the big boys in, like it felt like in WC 3 and WC 4.

Anyway, would this just represent the same amount of work as creating destroyed components would (if so, I can understand why it would be impractical)?

Just a thought, take it or leave it. I admit I don't have a realistic idea of what this would entail, and that is why I ask.

Sphynx
 
That's not a possibility for us due to the way the engine works. We can't change the capship's hull mesh according to the sum of a capship's hitpoints... we can only change a component's mesh according to that component's hitpoints. So, even if we did make destroyed component meshes, they would always be attached to an intact-looking hull - even after you destroy all of the capship's components.

That said, you might wonder why that Ralatha looks completely different when destroyed... but it's just because its hull is an invisible mesh - all the parts you see are either Bridge or Engine. :p That's something we did on some of our smaller ships to try to make the capship destruction look at least marginally better than WCP's while not taking too much of my time. Another advantage of this is that anywhere a torpedo lands, it's bound to do some damage... while in WCP you could pop 10 torpedoes at a Leviathan and not even scratch it, depending on where the torps would hit.

If it's any consolation, making destroyed hulls would probably be *more* trouble than making destroyed components, since components are often smaller and simpler structures than the hulls (I could take the Tarawa's bridge, for example, and just chop half of it off, while damage to the hull would probably result in more complex holes/dents/whatever).
 
Thanks for the response, Eder. I think I get it now. It looks like you really have done the best job possible with the engine, from what you are telling me. By the way, your models look stunning!
 
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