I just read that you agree and don't plan to add any of those old horrible square red hardpoints to the Ent-F in the Dev Diary, then had a thought.
What would you all think about allowing players to have the option to not only add or remove physical cannons on both Starfleet and KDF ships, but also allows multiple variations of cannons via the ship tailor? Meaning that you could choose a different style of cannon, more customization and right now some Starfleet ships (escorts) can use cannons but you can not physically see them. And the KDF ships have multiple cannons which can be seen and are used as hardpoints in most cases I believe.
Just a little idea that is no more than "fluff" to ponder over for the next time the escorts or KDF ships get a look at in future.
P.S. Really great work, some awesome and positive communication going on between players and Cryptic here.
I've removed many of them from the intrepid. Turns out it was demanded by CBS that if a weapon fire from our ships in game it must fire from a weapon hardpoint. The quick and easy solution to this in early pre-production was to make little hardpoints that we could attach anywhere on the ship without doing too much damage to the aesthetics... well
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
To be honest, I reckon when CBS said this, they meant that weapons shouldn't just fire from random parts of a ship model (like in some other Star Trek games), I don't think they meant it quite so literally that there had to be hardpoints added all over the ships like it is currently.
I'm pretty sure most ships can be modeled so that the hardpoints work properly, for example, all ships have fwd and rear torp launchers, so thats a no brainer, most ships have phaser strips on both sides of thier saucers, Dual phaser beams could easily come out from the strips where the regular phaser arrays come from. I suppose cannons are the main issue, but then maybe these can also come from the phaser strips as well, it'd probably look better than them comming from little black dots on the hulls, ships like the Miranda and Defiant have obvious hardpoints where cannons can come from of course.
You should get and intern to come in and do a sweep of all the hardpoints ;-)
Well for starters i think dual beam arrays should fire from the great phaser arrays/rings like we have seen them do canonicly.
For cannons, why not expand on the tech with the sets? standalone cannon models as part of the cannons themselves just like the pieces in the STF sets etc have random bits.
Well for starters i think dual beam arrays should fire from the great phaser arrays/rings like we have seen them do canonicly.
For cannons, why not expand on the tech with the sets? standalone cannon models as part of the cannons themselves just like the pieces in the STF sets etc have random bits.
That could be awesome, having certain weapon types add model hardpoints to your ship, hell, you could have different canon models for different energy types :-P
While on the subject of hard points, and this might not be your department & not really a ship error. Is there any plans to get the phaser effects to "warm up" first as seen in the shows like here:
Basically I'm referring to the effect where the beam goes around the bank 1st & then shoots out
I've removed many of them from the intrepid. Turns out it was demanded by CBS that if a weapon fire from our ships in game it must fire from a weapon hardpoint. The quick and easy solution to this in early pre-production was to make little hardpoints that we could attach anywhere on the ship without doing too much damage to the aesthetics... well
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
What about sinking some development time into 'Hard Strips' instead of Hard Points?
Same idea, except coded so that a phaser charge is seen to build quickly from A ---> B down the hard strip. These strips could be placed along cannon phaser strip locations as much as is it fits. They could even be lengthened in size to fit larger strips?
Sounds like it would mean adding an extra 'casting' animation to the hard strip for phasers but it would be better than having a phaser beam suddenly fire out from inside the hull.
Food for thought perhaps, if not already thrown in the pot.
This is exactly what I've been pleading to happen for ages. Get rid of the black weapon pimples and have the dual beams, phasers, turrets and even some cannons fire from the beam array models.
Thin out the beams (because right now they are ludicrous, just have them increase in bloom intensity as distance from the camera increases so they are visible.), have dual beams fire from a set pair of nodes within upper and lower fore and aft arrays (strips), have turrets (regardless of their slotted location) fire from whichever beam arrays are closest to the target (firing from multiple nodes if you have multiple turrets; because, while there are sillier things to see than a bunch of beams/bolts all squirting out of the same node, when there's nothing sillier going on, it looks pretty darn bad.), have single cannons fire from a centred node (or as close to centre as possible) on a forward dorsal or ventral beam array (Until there is a more aesthetically pleasing cannon model) and have dual cannons fire from set points in the arrays (separate from the dual beam banks) on ships that don't have dedicated dual cannon hardpoints (and please make them either more subtle or more cannon-like).
Personally, I'd like to see modular weapons graphics. No beam weapons equipped would mean no beam array models on the ship's surface, no cannons would mean no cannon models (if they were firing from dedicated cannon models instead of the arrays, that is.). That would tend to get rid of a BoP's wing cannons if no dual beams or dual cannons were equipped, but they could always be replaced with placeholder graphics, like a wing tip that hooks forward.
Personally, I'd like to see modular weapons graphics. No beam weapons equipped would mean no beam array models on the ship's surface, no cannons would mean no cannon models (if they were firing from dedicated cannon models instead of the arrays, that is.). That would tend to get rid of a BoP's wing cannons if no dual beams or dual cannons were equipped, but they could always be replaced with placeholder graphics, like a wing tip that hooks forward.[/COLOR]
This is something I've been asking for since before beta, I really wanted the weapons you had equipped have a bearing on how your ship looked. For phaser strips it could simply be a matter of having a few different textures to apply to the strips, depending on what mk weapons you have equipped (this would obviously have an option to be turned off).
I've removed many of them from the intrepid. Turns out it was demanded by CBS that if a weapon fire from our ships in game it must fire from a weapon hardpoint. The quick and easy solution to this in early pre-production was to make little hardpoints that we could attach anywhere on the ship without doing too much damage to the aesthetics... well
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
Why not go the canon route and make energy weapon hardpoints into strips and torpedo weapon hardpoints into launchers? Place them all in the appropriate places and you're done?
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
Can I make a suggestion, add the old TMP style Phaser nodes in place of the "red dots" I know they our old tech however, I think they will blend in better then the Black and red dots. Also in the new Star trek movie they seen to be configurable to fire different weapons.
I've removed many of them from the intrepid. Turns out it was demanded by CBS that if a weapon fire from our ships in game it must fire from a weapon hardpoint. The quick and easy solution to this in early pre-production was to make little hardpoints that we could attach anywhere on the ship without doing too much damage to the aesthetics... well
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
like i suggested many times in the past, each weapon type could have its own attatchment model.
so pulse weapons would mount or embed a pulse cannon on the hull or rim:
(http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/pulse-cannon.jpg)
putting a phaser in its place would make the pulse weapon vanish, and a phaser strip would mount on the hull
quantum launchers would mount a sovvy style port on the underside of the saucer.
distruptors would mount a cannon gun
if an intrepid was fully equipped with a mixing pot of weapons could turn out looking like the warship voyager:
(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/169/warshipvoyager3fr2.jpg/sr=1)
I've removed many of them from the intrepid. Turns out it was demanded by CBS that if a weapon fire from our ships in game it must fire from a weapon hardpoint. The quick and easy solution to this in early pre-production was to make little hardpoints that we could attach anywhere on the ship without doing too much damage to the aesthetics... well
it backfired and they look bad and everybody hates them. So as time goes forward, when I go in and touch a ship I'm going to try to remove them... this means I"ll have to either model in newer, more appealing hardpoints, or just make many weapons fire from a single place etc. you get the point... basically it'll be a lot of re-working but I'll do my best.
Do these little hardpoints take up anything from the model poly budget? For example on the Miranda you could remove the chickenpox...ahem...hardpoints and phaser arrays. Then model a phaser bank as a new type of hardpoint. Making it a new little hardpoint model has the same advantages of the easy old method as this same model could then be applied to the Centaur, Miranda, and Connie refit, and the Excelsior - which currently has some sort of grill instead of phaser banks. Also the Constellation should it ever arrive, or any other TMP era ships.
Then if there's enough budget left for the Miranda, import the warp engines from the Connie refit (while nipping the wings off the inside that shouldn't be there on either ship) since they are essentially the same engine.
For phaser arrays...perhaps a smaller little bit that could blend into the models for the arrays already on the ship?
I just wanted to mention that there's something weird going on when you equip the Aegis shield on the delta flyer- with the visuals enabled, there are four potato shaped glowy lights that float above the hull. Two above the nacelles, and two at the rear.
I just wanted to mention that there's something weird going on when you equip the Aegis shield on the delta flyer- with the visuals enabled, there are four potato shaped glowy lights that float above the hull. Two above the nacelles, and two at the rear.
I think those are the Aegis Weapon Hardpoints, they're on every ship usually where there are beam array hardpoints, so that's probably what you're seeing, although they should be attached to the hull.
Is their any chance when the team starts talking about new enemy ships you can consider the diamond the Borg Queen had?
Dan told us in TTS chat the other day we may run into the diamond in the DSE Borg encounters. This was his exact quote:
TTS in-game chat: (9 July 2011) dstahl: I've heard that there is a chance you can run into the Borg Queen Diamond in the new Borg DSEs that are coming. / Doff system is scheduled to hit TRIBBLE sometime in August
The new Borg texture looks absolutly sweet, the only other change I think the Borg need (other that the addition of the diamond which seems to be coming ) is the remodeling of the probes, in the series they were more like chamfered rectangular ships, as oppsoed to small spheres like they currently are in the game. I'm really looking forward to seeing these new textures in person :-)
I'm curious if we'll be seeing the Orion raiders (from ENT), as well as the D5 Klingon cruiser in the coming Klingon variants ;-)
CapnLogan i love your work i am a very big ship geek and with these pics im seeing i am drooling all over my keyboard (not really) but i am curious with the aegis deflector FX is there anyway to make it match the shape of the defelctor array on your ship so that wya it doesnt look wierd on some ships. and is the sovereign going to get some love soon its my favorite ship and i would to see it back on awesome mode lol.
anyways awesome work keep it up man cant wait to see what else you have planned
The new Borg texture looks absolutly sweet, the only other change I think the Borg need (other that the addition of the diamond which seems to be coming ) is the remodeling of the probes, in the series they were more like chamfered rectangular ships, as oppsoed to small spheres like they currently are in the game. I'm really looking forward to seeing these new textures in person :-)
Comments
KHAAAN!!!
...SPOOCK!!
I just read that you agree and don't plan to add any of those old horrible square red hardpoints to the Ent-F in the Dev Diary, then had a thought.
What would you all think about allowing players to have the option to not only add or remove physical cannons on both Starfleet and KDF ships, but also allows multiple variations of cannons via the ship tailor? Meaning that you could choose a different style of cannon, more customization and right now some Starfleet ships (escorts) can use cannons but you can not physically see them. And the KDF ships have multiple cannons which can be seen and are used as hardpoints in most cases I believe.
Just a little idea that is no more than "fluff" to ponder over for the next time the escorts or KDF ships get a look at in future.
P.S. Really great work, some awesome and positive communication going on between players and Cryptic here.
To be honest, I reckon when CBS said this, they meant that weapons shouldn't just fire from random parts of a ship model (like in some other Star Trek games), I don't think they meant it quite so literally that there had to be hardpoints added all over the ships like it is currently.
I'm pretty sure most ships can be modeled so that the hardpoints work properly, for example, all ships have fwd and rear torp launchers, so thats a no brainer, most ships have phaser strips on both sides of thier saucers, Dual phaser beams could easily come out from the strips where the regular phaser arrays come from. I suppose cannons are the main issue, but then maybe these can also come from the phaser strips as well, it'd probably look better than them comming from little black dots on the hulls, ships like the Miranda and Defiant have obvious hardpoints where cannons can come from of course.
You should get and intern to come in and do a sweep of all the hardpoints ;-)
For cannons, why not expand on the tech with the sets? standalone cannon models as part of the cannons themselves just like the pieces in the STF sets etc have random bits.
That could be awesome, having certain weapon types add model hardpoints to your ship, hell, you could have different canon models for different energy types :-P
Yes PLEASE!!!, preety preety preety PREETY Please!!
This is exactly what I've been pleading to happen for ages. Get rid of the black weapon pimples and have the dual beams, phasers, turrets and even some cannons fire from the beam array models.
Thin out the beams (because right now they are ludicrous, just have them increase in bloom intensity as distance from the camera increases so they are visible.), have dual beams fire from a set pair of nodes within upper and lower fore and aft arrays (strips), have turrets (regardless of their slotted location) fire from whichever beam arrays are closest to the target (firing from multiple nodes if you have multiple turrets; because, while there are sillier things to see than a bunch of beams/bolts all squirting out of the same node, when there's nothing sillier going on, it looks pretty darn bad.), have single cannons fire from a centred node (or as close to centre as possible) on a forward dorsal or ventral beam array (Until there is a more aesthetically pleasing cannon model) and have dual cannons fire from set points in the arrays (separate from the dual beam banks) on ships that don't have dedicated dual cannon hardpoints (and please make them either more subtle or more cannon-like).
Personally, I'd like to see modular weapons graphics. No beam weapons equipped would mean no beam array models on the ship's surface, no cannons would mean no cannon models (if they were firing from dedicated cannon models instead of the arrays, that is.). That would tend to get rid of a BoP's wing cannons if no dual beams or dual cannons were equipped, but they could always be replaced with placeholder graphics, like a wing tip that hooks forward.
This is something I've been asking for since before beta, I really wanted the weapons you had equipped have a bearing on how your ship looked. For phaser strips it could simply be a matter of having a few different textures to apply to the strips, depending on what mk weapons you have equipped (this would obviously have an option to be turned off).
Why not go the canon route and make energy weapon hardpoints into strips and torpedo weapon hardpoints into launchers? Place them all in the appropriate places and you're done?
Can I make a suggestion, add the old TMP style Phaser nodes in place of the "red dots" I know they our old tech however, I think they will blend in better then the Black and red dots. Also in the new Star trek movie they seen to be configurable to fire different weapons.
Dual phaser node
Single phaser node
The nodes uses Rapid fire 3
like i suggested many times in the past, each weapon type could have its own attatchment model.
so pulse weapons would mount or embed a pulse cannon on the hull or rim:
(http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/pulse-cannon.jpg)
putting a phaser in its place would make the pulse weapon vanish, and a phaser strip would mount on the hull
quantum launchers would mount a sovvy style port on the underside of the saucer.
distruptors would mount a cannon gun
if an intrepid was fully equipped with a mixing pot of weapons could turn out looking like the warship voyager:
(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/169/warshipvoyager3fr2.jpg/sr=1)
Do these little hardpoints take up anything from the model poly budget? For example on the Miranda you could remove the chickenpox...ahem...hardpoints and phaser arrays. Then model a phaser bank as a new type of hardpoint. Making it a new little hardpoint model has the same advantages of the easy old method as this same model could then be applied to the Centaur, Miranda, and Connie refit, and the Excelsior - which currently has some sort of grill instead of phaser banks. Also the Constellation should it ever arrive, or any other TMP era ships.
Then if there's enough budget left for the Miranda, import the warp engines from the Connie refit (while nipping the wings off the inside that shouldn't be there on either ship) since they are essentially the same engine.
For phaser arrays...perhaps a smaller little bit that could blend into the models for the arrays already on the ship?
I think those are the Aegis Weapon Hardpoints, they're on every ship usually where there are beam array hardpoints, so that's probably what you're seeing, although they should be attached to the hull.
yikes... this is wrong.
i totally hate the idea of the little hardpoint addons to begin with... I'm gonna talk this over with FX.
Also in case you didn't already hear, I fixed the Borg cube... I'm gonna try to do a really nice pass on all currently existing borg ships.
Have I ever mentioned you're my favorite dev? Like, seriously.
/bacon
Is their any chance when the team starts talking about new enemy ships you can consider the diamond the Borg Queen had?
How about fixing the Borg probes to look more canon as well?
As for the Borg Cube... NICE!!!! :cool:
Glad to see you efforts are making it look so much better.
Dan told us in TTS chat the other day we may run into the diamond in the DSE Borg encounters. This was his exact quote:
:cool:
Sweet! TY for the quick response.
any chancy you can make the polygons stand out like 50% less?
wow, just wow, they look amazing. thank you so much for bring back the futile to resistance.
there really is only one thing left to say
WE ARE THE BORG.
Say hello to the new hotness !
Wow CapnLogan, you never cease to amaze
I'm curious if we'll be seeing the Orion raiders (from ENT), as well as the D5 Klingon cruiser in the coming Klingon variants ;-)
anyways awesome work keep it up man cant wait to see what else you have planned
Like angular tylenol caplets.
And maybe make the K't'inga look more like the movie K't'ingas.
=edit=
Also, here are some model shots.
http://www.st-bilder.de/gallery/modelle/alien/klingonen/ktinga.html
Raw images:
http://www.st-bilder.de/gallery/image.raw?type=orig&id=65101
to
http://www.st-bilder.de/gallery/image.raw?type=orig&id=65218