Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

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[ September 06, 2003, 04:43: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Better take a seat, this might take a bit longer...
I hope I'll get some answers before the demo is out, most of the stuff would be self-explanatory once it's out...

1.) Which weapons from SEIV made it/didn't make it into the game?
2.) How many ships are available for the player to use? Which classes?
3.) How many different races are there?
4.) Is it really open, i.e. can you work for anybody/buy any ship?
5.) How is the difficulty level?
6.) Are there fighters? If yes, how are they controlled?
7.) Any rewards for completing the storyline?
8.) How big is the universe? Is it randomly-generated or fixed?
9.) Is trading a venerable way of raising cash a'la Elite, or is it just a minor feature like in, for example, freelancer?
10.) And finally, seeing that it is in 3D...how easy is it to mod? Again mostly text files, or is it more complicated this time?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Here are some brief answers, I'm far too lazy to go into much more detail. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Almost all of them are still in Star Fury, although a few have had their abilities modified.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most races have a frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, carrier, and a starbase - with several different hull sizes. The hull sizes also vary with race.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In the current campaigns, you've got Terrans, Xiati, Fazrah, Abbidon, Amonkrie, and the Sith'rak. Some of them are changed in appearance, but mostly the same.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sure. Ships available for purchase will vary depending on location, but most can be bought.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There are 4 difficulty levels, beg-avg-med-hard. I'd say it's difficult most of the time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes there are. They are launched and recovered and are computer controlled via your orders. There are also mines too so keep your eyes open!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, in the form of money. You also earn experience points from doing most things to put towards improving your ship, like repair or offensive skill etc.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's fixed based on the campaign, the largest campaign at this time has 80ish systems...but I'm sure lots more than that can be added.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is no real trading, but you can make good money performing cargo runs, hunting pirates or being a pirate, and collecting components from destroyed ships and selling them at the spaceport.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'd say some of the files are more difficult then your regular SE:IV, and those are usually ship related files that need to correspond to each other so it's a bit easier to make errors. All the files are text files though, that's good.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

What 3d format are the ships in (for mods)? How are they textured (size and format of bitmap)?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

The models must be converted to .x format and use a texture bitmap (.bmp format) of any size.

Personally I have good experience with using anim8or to model and Lithunwrap to do the texture mapping. Both programs are freeware.

[ September 07, 2003, 20:34: Message edited by: Rollo ]

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Rollo we need links. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

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I would also recommend Wings 3D (www.wings3d.org) for making ship models; it has a UV texture mapping plugin (what you need to make the texture bitmaps for the models http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) and exports to .3ds, which is easily converted to .x (just look on Google for a program called 3dsconv.exe). Wings has a TON of mesh manipulation commands - I made the saucer section of the Enterprise in just a few minutes by creating a cylinder and repeatedly insetting and extruding faces on either side!

Now you say you can make your texture files ANY size? That's news to me... looks like ships might start coming in "good graphics card" and "crappy graphics card" Versions! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I found one for lithunwrap...

http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I found one for lithunwrap...

http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">thanks.

and anim8or is simply www.anim8or.com

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

1) What is the quality of the 3-d engine? How does it compare to top-of-the-line 3-d games?

2) How much control do you have over individual ships? Do you have multiple turrets per ship? Can you shoot at multiple targets at the same time? Is there damage control and repair like in Starfleet Command?

3) How big are space battles? Can you have allied ships? Can you be part of a fleet action?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1) This obviously is not Doom3 or HL2, as its only one guy doing all the coding. Nothing overly dramatic about the graphics, pretty decent textures, I haven't ever seen anything that looked horrible, but nothing is super extreme outstanding. Of course, the game is to run on a P3 500 or so, so it really cannot hold a candle to Doom3 (I am ever so eagerly waiting for it... but I worry, will my P4 handle it?)

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

2) Each component takes damage separately, and you must prioritize which will be worked on first. Abilities of each component get degraded due to damage, and etc.
You have 4 weapon Groups for mass firing of guns, and the number of turrets completely depends on the layout of the ship. Stock ships have between 2 and 6 firing points, but there is no real limit on how many you can put on your own model. 255 perhaps, or 64k maybe.

3) Man, I just missed taking a screenshot of this beautiful assault... I was hunting pirates with a TCN battlegroup, and as we rounded the Star, a lone pirate destroyer was sitting there... Three capital ships plus me, and 7 fighters just hammered it from all sides. The beams and bolts and missiles and fire and explosions! Quite impressive light show, but the poor pirate didn't Last long and within seconds he was vapor.

Previously, I saw a fairly evenly matched battle going on between a TCN battlegroup and a larger number of Pirate ships (smaller hulls). 3 on 5 plus fighters, IIRC.
I went in to help out with my early-game destroyer, and managed to take down two Pirate fighters and pump a few rounds of DUC into Pirate shields while the big boys slugged it out. Drew some healthy amounts of fire away from the TCN ships, too. Eventually my shields started giving out, and my armor was getting quite thin, so I had to retreat. Got pegged by a pair of Pirate missiles in the back, halfway to safety. Didn't quite make it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

You could always mod bigger fleets in though. It would be a lot tougher on the Player, but if you're up to the challenge, it can be done.

[ September 09, 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Is there any multiplayer capability in the game?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

wuzza TCN battlegroup

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">no

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">TCN = Terran Confederation Navy

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What I want to know most about is how is the interface? Will there be a lot of buttons to press just to fly your ship, or some sort of simplified commands? I'm not a big fan of flight simulators, so I don't want to spend my whole time trying to learn to fly the ship.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

The ships are very easy to fly using the mouse and some hotkeys (which you can customize, of course).

Rollo

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">2: You control your ship directly, and specify orders for your fighters to follow. You do not have the opportunity to control any other ships. You pretty much have to target one thing at a time, except that point defense will autofire on any inbound missiles or enemy fighters without you targetting them. You get a basic repair ability that improves with experience, and there are repair bays to increase repair rate. There are also single use items you can carry in cargo for emergency repair of shields, armor and hull.

3: As SJ alluded to, one of the things you can do is to look for a friendly fleet beating up on some bad guys and try to slip in for a kill or two for experience. You can also look for the aftermath of battles to scavenge equipment for your own use or to sell. One of the things that I look for when entering a new system is for the light show of a fleet battle off in the distance. Frequently, you can see the weapon effects before you can see the ships themselves. Of course, when you've worked your way up to a battleship, you can cause quite a light show yourself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

How easy is it to "mod" new systems and sectors?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

I think systems are about the same difficulty as SE4 system in terms of modding, except there is more flexibility and more detail possible...

Rollo's made a quite nice map for Sol. Sun in the middle, planets in random places in their orbits at specific distances from the sun... Moons in random positions in a circle around the planet... And a very nice asteroid belt. Detailed descriptions, colony types, populations, etc.

Quadrant modding is mostly a matter of specifying what systems are present, and the links between them. There's also a legend for your map, and colouring of the warplines and systems, and systems that start out invisible, etc.

[ September 09, 2003, 15:38: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

thanks.

who (else) here is going to mod a ship with as many weapon points as the frame rate can take?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">so, you can't buy them or you just can't control them????

[ September 09, 2003, 19:18: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

you can buy other ships. but you can't remote control or give orders to other ships except your own fighters.

Rollo

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

You can buy fighters and launch them from fighter bays. You can not directly control them, but you can issue them general orders. I assume it would be possible to mod some destroyers and such to be "fighter" hulls (units) so you could get a pseudo-fleet going, though you would be able to "carry" the destroyers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif This could of course just be seen as an abstraction layer for overall fleet command or something. Or it could be like the Highliner SE4 mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

A lot of cool stuff, I might just order this game.

So there is no multiplayer?

How are missions scripted?

What kind of modding tools does this thing come with, or is it all text like SEIV?

Can you mod new races?

Exactly how moddable is it?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

There is no multiplayer mode. I can see it being added in the future or some sort of skirmish mode - of course I'm just speculating here.

Missions are controlled by text files that are fully moddable.

It's all text files, but SJ has created some programs to help with the more difficult files that detail with co-ordinates and slots etc.

You can new races, ships, systems, anything.

It's more moddable than SE:IV IMO.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

what's the biggest fleet battle you've seen, and can we get pictures, if any?

also, are there randomly generated missions? can you just wander around without having to worry about a central storyline?

[ September 09, 2003, 22:15: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

yes, there are random missions and you can move freely and ignore the story if you wish.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Thanks for the replies. I probably will get this game but only after I get a new laptop in December. I'm planning on getting the new Dell Inspiron 8600.

In the meantime:

1) Is the universe dynamic? Do you have different reputation levels with different factions? Do the power levels of difference factions change as a result of your actions?

2) Can you visit the surface of planets and moons or is it all space? Are planets and moons 3-D objects at all or just background graphics?

3) People mention experience. Is that your personal experience or your ship's experience?

4) Do you hire crews for big ships?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

For your first question, it's not that deep. However, I think there is some of that in dealing with pirates. It's not something I've really looked at though.

You can't go on the surface, but some planets have "facilities" like spacedocks or trading unions that you sort of visit. The planets are actually 3d objects although they are small in relative scale (i.e. sort of bigger than your ship, but it's not intended to be a true scale anyways).

Experience applies to your ship's abilities and your rank.

No hiring of crews.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Is the Quadrant map the same each time you play? Is there a random quadrant map generator for mod makers, or do all the systems and planets need to be input by hand?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

What is the average/maximum poly count suggested for ship models?

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what size are race/npc portraits?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm thinking of Elite 2 here in which there are physical, 3-d buildings for spaceports and such on the surface of moons and planets.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

There are pictures for the facilities, yes, but they are not 3d, and you do not go to the planet's surface.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">256x256

[ September 10, 2003, 04:28: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Thanks for the info, Imp.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just thought I'd BUG everyone and ask again. Conventiently packaged in one message! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ September 10, 2003, 20:04: Message edited by: Wydraz ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

The objects of maps are randomally placed (i.e. planets, etc), but the number of them and location of systems are set by the data files included in the campaign. At this time, there is no random galaxy generation.

Ship poly-counts are usually a few hundred, and a couple of starbases are just over a thousand.

[ September 11, 2003, 04:49: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">logical impossibility. cannot randomly place planets, etc at st locations.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Woops, I had meant to say that the locations of systems and warp point connections were in the data files.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

kinda like the 'pizza world' theory? 'it's round, yet flat!' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

i've been thinking about something. could you place more than one solar system in a sector? make a galaxy in one sector?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

Don't see why not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif That's pretty much what SJ indicates. The only thing that would stop you is if you couldn't put more than one star in a system - but then there'd be no binary, trinary, or other multi-star systems - and since they were in SEIV, I shouldn't think they'd leave them out now.

[ September 11, 2003, 19:10: Message edited by: Wydraz ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

we could then make a galaxy with space drive's instead of warp point travel. afterburner's, if there are any, would be the ftl drives. if not, then just make the solar system's closer. warp points, between points in the system, would be wormholes, facilitating travel, but only between certain points.

someone want to try to mod this please so i know if i can get my hopes up? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif i'm not asking for anything big, just make two or three solar systems in a secter, the afterburner ftl and a semi-random warp point to the same secter. i'll be happy with just two or three solar sys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

ok, it's got an afterburner. but can it increase the maximum speed of the ships when used?

[ September 11, 2003, 20:26: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Afterburners increase acceleration but not top speed. You could mod in a class of ship had a higher top speed and call it a FTL ship, though.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

or just give all ships an infinite speed and make it more neutonian. afterburners would then be a ftl booster.

uh, i'm not saying i don't like warp point travel. i find it a little restrictive, but not enough to impare gameplay. two gameplay modes are better than one. i admit, however, that, if it's possible, i'll probably be spending more time in the free-flight one.

[ September 12, 2003, 01:39: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

You can set guidelines for the planet positionings, such as completely random, fixed coords, random in ring around coords, random in ring around a previously placed object, etc.

They are both fixed, and random to various degrees.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

I'm fairly sure that there were screenshots of binary or trinary systems on the site...

You'd have to increase the size of a map immensely, and adjust the number of enemies spawned.

Other ships are usually placed when you travel through warppoints and the next map is loaded, so if you were to travel between the system on your map without using the warppoints, you'd run out of enemies.
If you put the stars at a somewhat realistic distance from each other, you wouldn't have to worry I suppose.

It might be nice to just have the neighbouring stars placed on the map - WAYYY out there, and without planets around them - just so you can see the light...

Perhaps an occasional "paired" system... Two stars orbiting at a very large distance, and each with a small planetary system.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

well, you could have warp-points that go to themselves. tell people to go into them every so often. any beta testers want to comment? can the beta testers comment on this?

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't know if you could have a warp point go to itself. I do believe that there are other ways to cause new ships to appear. I know that at least one "defend the starbase" type mission causes enemy ships to appear after you receive the mission. Perhaps there is a way to have any mission you accept cause random placement of a few new ships. I am not sure, I didn't spend much time on modding the files. I was too busy trying to get through the stock scenarios before new patches would invalidate my save games.

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thanks, one step closer.

Re: Star Fury Question, Ask Away
 

My question is how long does it take to explore one solar system?Are the systems small in the game or does it take a little while to explore? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I don't know if this was mention earlier or not but do the ships move like in starfleet command just to the sides or do you move up,down,left,and right just about anywhere you want?[because it would be alot cooler to really fly in space http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ]

Thanks! \\//_ Live as long as your mom tells you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif