@ Sarty: The 1600x1200 image you posted a page back or so, as it includes the custom WC UI, did you just enlarge the image up to 1600x1200 from 1280x960 before uploading or have you somehow managed to get the UI working in other resolutions?
@ IronDuke: I like the name suggestion (Wing Commander: Eternal Vigilance).
I'm looking forward to playing the mod in about three weeks time when I get back home, so I'm speaking below from my testing experience a few months ago and this pre-beta release may play quite differently.
About the bomber/torpedo damage potential, this element of gameplay was adjusted significantly in the last few weeks of my testing duties, or rather the underlying capital ship stats were amended to substitute for the difficulties in implementing a robust shielding system, resulting in torpedoes becoming very effective, whereas previously they only did minimal damage. Check out this unrealeased (
LQ - 11.8MB /
HQ - 26.7MB) video I compiled in August. The torps also seemed to have collision detection issues then.
While testing, I was finding that the computer AI would sometimes send concentrated bomber groups and defending against these without much fighter cover was difficult; lone capital ships being especially vulnerable, although this does tend to tie-in with WC gameplay (torps king against capital ships) and it works both ways. There may be some need for further balancing and hopefully this release should give everyone the chance to provide some feedback to refine the experience.
A couple ways it could maybe be adjusted (if the feeling is that torps and/or bombers are too powerful) is to either increase the cost of bombers, significantly increase the strength of structures and bases or maybe place some kind of limit on the number of bombers that a carrier (e.g. 4 wings) and space station (e.g. 8 wings) can build or perhaps a time delay similar to the missile/torpedo delay between the construction of bombers, i.e. after constructing some Longbows a two-minute counter prevents the construction of any more from that unit (carrier/base) until the countdown is complete?
How are you guys finding the speed of the capships and fighters, as well as general gameplay? There were some adjustments when I was testing to give the impression of a more realistic environment, i.e. didn't want the fighters to be able to get from one side of the map to the other in 30secs, which reduces the importance of jump lanes and far-flung resource operations.
Some of the new features sound interesting... can't wait to try out the sensor disabling probe (a UBW capability?).
What do you guys think of the Capital Ship Missiles and the UBW missile frigate? I really enjoyed the missile launch sequence and sound fx! In the last few days before I left for university I was working on a weapons video but was unable to finish it in time, showing off the CSM (some slo-mo of a transport getting obliterated), sensor pings and the marine shuttle/UBW attack shuttle, which I thought were very neat. Taking over enemy carriers was a blast -- the shuttles (you could stack two on either end of a Concordia to decrease capture time) tended to be pretty safe from nearby capital ship turret fire while actually boarding, but were particularly vulnerable to defending fighters.
Cheers,
Bryn
