Suggestions for UE 2

A.Non

Captain
Excellent game, and I have a few suggestions for UE2

1 Rapier, if the UBW were building an original fighter they'd probably want to give it an original name (my suggestion would be "Cutlass" or "Longsword" but feel free to post alternatives on this this thread).

Stats.
Guns: Light Tachyons (2) Viper Cannon (2)
Missiles: Rocket pods (24) Heat Seekers (6) ImRecs (4) FoFs (4)
Max Speed: 450
Afterburn: 1200
Armour: 275 Fore, 250 Flanks 200 Aft
Shields: 300 Fore & Aft

Again these are only suggestions, feel free to post alternative stats (including manouverability)

2 Avenger flew it in the Simulator, good ship, perhaps could be refined, made more bomber like but at the same time more "user friendly"
Max Speed:380
Afterburn: Stays the same.
Missiles Add 4 light torps, reduce ImRecs anf FoFs to 6 instead of 8

3 If I remember correctly Daniels was CO of Dauntless's "last squadron". Does this mean that she would carry more if fully operational? Maybe later in the game 2 further squadrons of test pilots 1 (1 for the avenger, 1 for the new fighter) to be posted aboard as a "reward" for the events of UE1.

4 Flown the Bearcat in the Simulator, brilliant fighter, hope to fly it "for real" in the next game
 
In UE2, squadrons will be added to bring the Dauntless to a full complement. I doubt they will be given a test squadron, but more than likely a few rapier IVs will be transferred to the Dauntless to give the ship more combat umph. I agree that the Avenger needs some light torps but the new loadout would probably be 6 light, 2 heavy, 6 FF and 6IR to make it more well rounded and more realistic, as a rule--for torps are more massive than IR or FF--light torps take 1.5 to 2 on space for a medium missile while the heavies are two light torps. (this is just the rule of thumb I use)

As for the fighter arrangement, I don't know. Probably a rapier II/raptor squadron and a light fighter squadron will be added. There may be bearcats, but I am not sure as their number may be too small to be transferred to the Dauntless; though the Dauntless is to be a major fleet center in the BWs as it is one of extremely few ships to have a complement of 100: IIRC 98-Princeton and 104-Bengal.

Just a note, the only thing here that is sure is that the Dauntless will be brought to a full complement, and the rest is just educated guesses and conjecture from my e-mails with Quarto and UE posts concerning UE2.
 
Hmm, I should clarify something - at this stage, no information anybody (including me!) has on UE2 can be considered reliable, for the simple reason that there's no concrete plans for UE2. It's been almost two and a half years since UE1 was finished; during this time, we've never stopped thinking about UE2, but there's been a lot of different, mutually-exclusive ideas about the details of what would be in it. So, even if I wrote something personally, that doesn't mean anything :p.
 
Hmmm...I would of thought that UE2 would basicially be based on your ideas for it. Well, at least we know UE2 will become a mod--probably a finished one at that. Who will be leading it is unknown, though. So Quarto, if you and Pedro won't be able to lead it, then who?
 
Eh? I only said that I'm not sure what UE2 will be about - not that I won't be leading it. What's more, I said there are no concrete plans for UE2 - which should not be interpreted as an indication that UE2 will be made :p.

What it comes down to is that we're not capable of working on two projects at once. Half of us have full-time jobs, half are university students, and some, like PopsiclePete or Tango, have families to take care of. So, we don't have that much time for modding, and when we say Standoff is a priority, we actually mean that Standoff is the only show in town. I can tell you that Michael (who of the bunch of us is the keenest to get UE2 started eventually) is working on laying down some more solid plans for UE2, but that's about it. Even if we do make UE2 (which is far from certain), no real work will be started before Standoff is finished.
 
I understand that, it's just that UE2 sounds to me to be uncertain to the point that there may not be one. (of course there are people like Eder and others--me--that will make sure a UE2 exists even if you don't have the time to put into it) Speaking of which, is UE2 actually going to be using the SO engine? Flight Commander is still up in the air, but the fact that a mod is with it during advanced construction should make it a more compatiable engine for modding. There are, of course, many, EASY-TO-MOD engines out there--at least more modder friendly than SO. :mad:
 
I believe I speak for everyone when I say "TO HELL WITH THE VISION ENGINE!!!!"

Seriously, all of us are fed up with the SO (vision) engine's limitations at this point. Its way too old, and the lack of a source code makes making any additions or changes very very VERY difficult. Standoff will almost certainly be the last independant project made on the Vision engine as we would all probably commit ritual suicide at the thought of working with it again.

I'm not free to disclose any plans at this point for a possible UE2 or what engine it would be on.... I'll just say we're working on it.
 
Needaham45 said:
I believe I speak for everyone when I say "TO HELL WITH THE VISION ENGINE!!!!"
No you don't. I don't know if I am the only one, but I have no interest or any motivation in modding a non WC engine. Of course, UE2 doesn't need my contribution to be done, but if it has to be on another engine, it'll be without me.

Anyway, I don't see why UE2 would have to be made in another engine... I think the main reasons UE2's development has been soooo long are:
  1. We didn't know were we were going, always adding ships, stuff and concepts because we didn't know how far we could mod SO
  2. We didn't know what we were doing, since we had no previous experience in SO modding; UE was the first full mod for SO ever. We made lots of research and discoveries making UE wich are now benefiting Standoff


Now, we that have all the basic work done for UE, you'd want do start all over again with a new engine ? Re-create the ships ? Re-create the weapons ? Redo game balancing ? Re-create the mission structure ? Create a WC atmosphere in a non WC game ? And most importantly; re-learn how to do it ? I believe that the basic package we've created for UE would have allowed us to create a batch of new missions pretty quickly given that it's all that is needed for UE2: missions ! (Only if you stick with the SO engine, of course)
 
I don't know - it seems like we've reached the limit of what the engine can do at this point. We've modded it and adapted it and fought with it non-stop, and it seems like we can't go much farther. By today's standards, the engine is very out of date and as much as we mod it, soon enough, there's going to be too much limiting what we can do.
 
The Vision engine is leaky ship, we've got its hull patched up left right and centre, we've added all the equipment she can hold on board but there are some limitations which she can never overcome. The vision engine truly was superb and its amazing it lasted as long as it did.
Modding the Vision engine however is not our only option. Trust me Pete when I say that if the Vision engine is not used, and I don't not believe any project using it can become more successfull than Standoff or UE have managed, UE2 will be Wing Commander to the core.
To add further fuel to the fire I should point out that the UEteam has currently be split into two main cells and more members are onboard than the community knows about.

At any rate many of the UE team are working on Standoff and you should not expect UE2 for quite some time.
 
Pop. Pete, by your description, the only engine capable of that is the FC engine which is still incomplete and you guys will probably be done with Standoff before the first episode of RG is complete--of course that really depends on the work that is done with Standoff through this year.

Say, are there really that many SO pascallers that worked on UE that would come back for UE2?
 
Iceblade said:
(of course there are people like Eder and others--me--that will make sure a UE2 exists even if you don't have the time to put into it)
Eh, speak for yourself. ;) Standoff is my pet project - the only one currently in existance - and as such, it's the only thing I will personally make sure gets to be a finished and polished game.

When the guys get around to making a UE2, I will probably be part of the modelling team... that's the safest and most accurate description of the situation, and it's a far cry from me making sure UE2 will exist. :p
 
Personally I'd rather not work with the bugs again, UE2 isn't my personal choice of project, fortunatley for me I'm not on the UE2 cell :D
 
If you guys want to do another UE, I'd say drop the bugs and try to create an original idea, though the enemy could always be Confed, Kilrathi or some other shadowy organization.
 
Well, UE is about the bugs entering the Border Worlds...hence the name. You just need to give it more depth, make it more shadowy...maybe the Flight Commander engine, once finished, will provide more artistic freedom. Another thing I want to see: MORE KILRATHI. It was really cool flying alongside the Kilrathi...would it be possible that the Zu'Baka be a part of the Dauntless' carrier group?
 
Don't forget the Vega Strike engine...given that the parameters were all measured from Privateer and all the stats from that were inputted, it wouldn't be far off from any of your Wing Commander needs :) and you have a large team of experienced modders and programmers already there to help out.
 
The beauty of FC is that the missions are programming free and RG will have the UE ships already converted and the conversion process being made more versatile from .iff to .obj--maybe even a process for converting 3ds files. But I am sure Vega strike is pretty easy to mod as well, esp. with numerous modders having already worked out some of the bugs and inadequacies.

Two pretty good choices that, IMHO, are heads above SO--which is of no disbute I'm sure.
 
Needaham45 said:
I don't know - it seems like we've reached the limit of what the engine can do at this point. We've modded it and adapted it and fought with it non-stop, and it seems like we can't go much farther.
Reached the limit ? Really ? Then look at the attached picture. We have not reach the limit, it's just that we couldn't rely on modding information gathered by others to make ours; instead we need to find it out by ourselves. ...

... but anyway, why would we have to mod the engine even further than we have ? Don't you think it would be just as rewarding to just make more interesting missions in the same trend as UE and Standoff ? When we released UE, people complained it didn't include enough missions. We just released Standoff's prologue, and people says they can't wait for the next episode.... will Standoff's episode 2 radically push the engine limits even farther ? No. But people are eager to play the next missions nontheless.
 

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Sweet room!

*I like it. I like it. :D *

Well, my complaints about the SO engine on more on its mission making and modability and not so much its limits--but jumping and cloaking and capship-to-capship weapons are pretty cool :D .

*I would like that. I would like that. :D *

;)
 
Well, cloaking might not yet be possible and may never be... but WC2-style capship battles is possible. If you make caphips made entirely of one component (or have the core mesh wrapped in a component mesh) and have a big gun or the turret guns flagged as "can hurt capships", capships would be able to shoot themselves to death.

We discussed it before for Standoff but of Eder made design decision to keep multiple component capships because he felt the multiple component aspect of WCP/SO capships was a fun aspect of the game that he wanted to keep in Standoff. Capship battles can be scripted anyway.
 
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