[SHIP] RoSp-Ships [V1.04 - 11/9/2010] - Teladi Turrets Available

[Topcross]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First of all, English is my 3rd language so please excuse me for any spelling or grammar mistakes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ external image ]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---News---
As of now (V1.04), J.I.GORKIJ is not only helping me with beta testing but also with concept development, there for I consider him to be part of this (two-man) mod team.
---News---

One of the things that has always bothered me in X3TC is that most ships aren’t designed to do specific tasks. Instead most ships are balanced out, fitting to their class and race. While that is logical, it’s not really fun.

There for I decided to create some ships that are designed specifically for one task. The result are ships that are not balanced at all but not overpowered either. It is not my goal at all to create some ‘I-win-ships’, balancing them in line with other ships is very important to me and feedback regarding this is always most appreciated.

Also, while some ships may seem nice in my opinion, other people may think the ideas are rather stupid. Remember : ‘De gustibus et coloribus non disputandum est.’ I do want to create ships to everyone’s liking though and there for all ideas are welcome and will be considered. If I use someone’s idea, obviously I’ll give proper credit for this.

Lastly, if you find any bugs please report them to me and I’ll try to fix them. Do keep in mind that this is my first mod and I’m learning a lot about making ships along the way, so some newbie mistakes are likely to sneak in.

[ external image ] V1.04
[ external image ] V1.04, compatible with Cadius' X-tra Ship/Stations Mod.
[ external image ]The Manual, also included with the mod.

Installation
To install the mod simply place all files in your ‘X3 Terran Conflict’ folder.
When running the game, choose this mod as your active mod. Alternatively, install this mod as a fake patch by placing the .cat and .dat file in your main ‘X3 Terran Conflict’ folder and rename them to the highest number +1 of all .cat and .dat files. (In the current version of Terran Conflict (2.7.1) the highest vanilla number is 12 so rename it to 13.)
To install the version compatible with the X-tra Ships/Stations Pack, make sure the .cat en .dat files are in this order: X-tra Ships/Stations Pack > RoSp-Ships.

It is strongly recommended to keep a back-up of your vanilla folder and your savefiles AT ALL TIMES when you use mods.

Uninstall
To uninstall, run the script ‘Uninstall.Topcross.RoSp-ships’ in the script editor. After that remove all the files from this mod from your ‘X3 Terran Conflict’ folder.

IMPORTANT : Simply removing all files without running the script will mean that the shipyards will still have the ships in their products list.

Updating
To update, simply overwrite all files, if special actions have to be taken to update, I will mention this with the release.

THE SHIPS

Boron
M4S Arowana :
The Arowana is a M4S (M4 Striker) designed to harass traders. It also excells at destroying M6s and M7s when supported by a M6. It fields two M6-grade lasers.
[ external image ]

Split
M4S Krait :
The Krait is a heavy M4S, fielding 4 M6-grade lasers. A M7 is no match for a swarm of these ships.
[ external image ]

Paranid
M7 Arachne : The Arachne is designed to be a anti-fighter escort for capital ship patrols.
[ external image ]

USC
M5 Shobo :
The Shobo is a unarmed Stealth ship, it is the main recon ship of the USC.
[ external image ]

ATF
M7 Loki :
The Loki is a Assault Frigate, fielding a strong forward array of guns.
[ external image ]

Turrets
One of my goals with this mod is to give all ships race-specific turrets.

I'm using Mace24de's turrets for this and I'm adding my own too along the way.

Turrets in the mod so far on vanilla ships:

Boron:
[ external image ]

Paranid
[ external image ]

Teladi
[ external image ]

Special thanks
Without these people this mod wouldn’t have been possible, so thank you:

(In no particular order)

-Cadius: for answering some of my questions and being an inspiration for any starting modeler, also when I didn’t know something I used his mod as a template to see how I should do something. Also I would like to thank him for allowing me to make a compatible version of his mod with this.
-Killjaeden: for answering some of my questions and being an inspiration for any starting modeler
-Eldyranx3: for helping me with the scripting needed to get my ships in shipyards (I’m a total noob scripter, well I was back then, now I’m a beginner )
-Italianmoose0: for his ship designs (he makes amazing sketches ) and beta testing
-Mace24de: for making the race-specific turrets and letting me use them
-J.I.Gorkij: for beta testing, now also part of this as a concept developer
-Egosoft: for making a great game and giving it many modding options
-The Community: for, urm…, well…, using this mod I suppose.


To-do list
Oh... Where do I begin?
First thing on this list would obviously be: make more ships. I have a few more things in mind though:

- Balancing, top priority along with making more ships.
- Give all vanilla ships race-specific turrets.
- Make more turrets.
- Make some unique equipment to make some ships truly role-specific, already tried this but as I'm not scripter (not even a good modder yet ), this didn't work out to well. When I find the time I hope to learn bit more about scripting and try this again, unless a willing scripter with time is dieing to help me on this...
- Suggestions...

There ya go gents, I hope you enjoy.

[Topcross]

Used files and entries

Altered Vanilla files:
types\bodies
types\Components
types\Dummies
types\Tships

T-files:
9998-L044

T-files entries:
ID 17 : 95000-96000
ID 9998 : 1

Any mod that uses one of these files is incompatible unless you merge the files.

Changelog

V1.04 (11/09/2010)
- Added race-specific turrets to the Teladi Capital ships (M1, M2, M7, M7S) and TL.

V1.03 (09/09/2010)
- Added race-specific turrets to the Paranid Capital ships (M1, M2, M7, M7S) and TL.
- Moved bridge camera of the Paranid M7 Agamemnon to give a better view.

V1.02 (07/09/2010)
- Added race-specific turrets to the Boron Capital ships (M1, M2, M7) and TL.
- Tweaked stats of the Shobo, Arachne, Krait, Arowana and Loki.

V1.01 (06/09/2010)
- Added Split M4S Krait.
- Fixed bug in setupscript of version compatible with Cadius' mod.

V1 (05/09/2010)
- Initial Release.

[Topcross]

You cannot redistribute anything from this mod without my permission.

[Advent1s]

Can we have pics of the new ships?

Doesn't matter when obviously, your busy making more

[Topcross]

Can we have pics of the new ships?

Doesn't matter when obviously, your busy making more

I didn't add them to the first post because that would make it to big, they are all in the manual but:

USC M5 Shobo: http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80 ... /Shobo.jpg
ATF M7 Loki: http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80 ... s/Loki.jpg
Boron M4S Arowana: http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80 ... rowana.jpg
Paranid M7 Arachne: http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80 ... rachne.jpg

[StarCrack]

love the turrets

[Topcross]

love the turrets

You'll have to thank Mace24de for that, I only made one so far.
They are not on vanilla ships yet, I'll try to do the first race tomorrow.

[J.I.Gorkij]

Wow, really good idea. I have been wondering, why there aren't specialized ships like that (just a few, like XL cargo transporter Falcon Hauler etc.)

I think Shobo is little overpowered. I understand, what's role of that ship, but with current stats I see Shobo as overtuned Arrow.
What about removing its shields? One 1MW shield is useless anyway (one hit in asteroid = death, one shot from enemy too) and this would add feeling that everything was sacrificed for umatchable speed.

Turrets you've made looks great (I like that Death Star-like turret (argon-turretB.jpg) - must have on my flagship ). Just one makes me laugh instead of scaring me (no offense) - first ATF. Don't understand, why are there these "ears"? It looks like small cute rabbit to me

Don't take this as criticism (negative criticism), just my opinion. I appreciate your and Mace24de's effort and time you had given to this.

[xavierd]

For this reason I'm looking for another place to upload this.

http://xai-corp.net/

[Topcross]

Wow, really good idea. I have been wondering, why there aren't specialized ships like that (just a few, like XL cargo transporter Falcon Hauler etc.)

I think Shobo is little overpowered. I understand, what's role of that ship, but with current stats I see Shobo as overtuned Arrow.
What about removing its shields? One 1MW shield is useless anyway (one hit in asteroid = death, one shot from enemy too) and this would add feeling that everything was sacrificed for umatchable speed.

Turrets you've made looks great (I like that Death Star-like turret (argon-turretB.jpg) - must have on my flagship ). Just one makes me laugh instead of scaring me (no offense) - first ATF. Don't understand, why are there these "ears"? It looks like small cute rabbit to me

Don't take this as criticism (negative criticism), just my opinion. I appreciate your and Mace24de's effort and time you had given to this.

About Shobo, I know still looking to balance it, that's also why its a rather expensive ship. I considered giving it no shields at all but that would be rather strange as well, special for Terrans who always try to be smart.

The main issue with making Role-specific ships is balancing, you want them to be good in their role, but at the same time not uberships.

I currently have only one person who was beta testing for me, he was doing a very good job but as it is only his and my oppinion combined on how things look, unbalanced things are always likely to sneak in. There for I appreciate comments like this. (Also more people who want to beta test would help. )

For the turrets, Mace24de is not part of this mod, he didn't create the turrets specially for me, he created them as a modding resource, which I'm gladly going to use. So far it seems not many people have looked at his topic is getting burried, I thought it was a shame to let these turrets go lost. If you want to thank him for the nice turrets he created, please leave a comment in his topic.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... ht=turrets

That turret is the turret I like the least as well, one of the reasons I created my own ATF turrets (also because it was way to big to fit it on the Loki but that was easily fixed.)

I'm not sure if I'm going to use all of his turrets, but I think most are very nice and worth using.

[Topcross]

For this reason I'm looking for another place to upload this.

http://xai-corp.net/

Thank you.
Going to look into uploading there tomorrow, going to continue work on next ship for a while now.

[J.I.Gorkij]

About Shobo, I know still looking to balance it, that's also why its a rather expensive ship. I considered giving it no shields at all but that would be rather strange as well, special for Terrans who always try to be smart.

Well, maybe it's only my experience, but is it 1MJ shield really for anything? Ships don't survive asteroid crash, one shot could kill you etc. Sometimes I get feeling 1MJ shield = no shield.
OR Decreasing cargo capacity, so fighter can carry only shield and one Energy Cell (place for luggage/medpack) - it would make Shobo three part ship (pilot, shield, engine).

(Also more people who want to beta test would help. )

I haven't tried ships yet (just read manual), but I will, tomorrow, and post my feedback here.

I'm not sure if I'm going to use all of his turrets, but I think most are very nice and worth using.

Yes, sure, they are really good.

Just few ideas (maybe stupid, maybe not):

Ship-Rammer (M6)
When I started playing X games, lots of my dogfights were won just because my shields allowed me to survive ramming in (damaged and slowed) fighters. Even now, when my Panther gets stuck in fight with M5, i use it's long nose to reduce their numbers.
I've missed ship with really good speed and manouverability, no front weapons, just a few anti-fighter turrets (1 up, 1 down), bad laser reactor (not enough to handle fully two PRG), not great shield reactor (slower shield recharging), but capable of mounting capital-class shields in M6-like ship (enought to take M7, not so strong to kill M2/M1).

Artillery Ship (M2)
Capital class ship, specialized in bringing very strong, long range attack with slow cadence. Shape similar to Deca, but instead of compact hull there are lot of gaps. Basically it is very big laser, with bridge, engine room, engines, shields, few turrets and small cargospace glued on.
Ships is very defenceless in close combat, so it must take space from enemies, but when you need to destroy station, call for an artillery...
Pros: Huge damage (stations destroyed in 2-4 shots)
Cons: Very slow, defenceless against everything above M4, not great hull, little cargo capacity, weapons take long to recharge/fire again, projectile to slow to hit even slowest M2 (well, maybe Aran wouldn't escape)

Battlecruiser (M2)
Slow, massive Battleship, specialized in capital ship fight, not very capable in fighting with fighters. Instead, carrying it's own fighters (small number). Can withstand big damage, can inflict huge damage, it's very hard to manouver (RPM like Aran).

Fast Super Freighter (TS)
Speed 175% of Mistral Super Freighter. Cargo space 50% of Mistral SF. That's all.

Well, that's few ideas i have, maybe one isn't so crazy

EDIT: Why I have feeling that my suggestions doesn't fit style of your mod?

[Topcross]

Ship-Rammer (M6)
When I started playing X games, lots of my dogfights were won just because my shields allowed me to survive ramming in (damaged and slowed) fighters. Even now, when my Panther gets stuck in fight with M5, i use it's long nose to reduce their numbers.
I've missed ship with really good speed and manouverability, no front weapons, just a few anti-fighter turrets (1 up, 1 down), bad laser reactor (not enough to handle fully two PRG), not great shield reactor (slower shield recharging), but capable of mounting capital-class shields in M6-like ship (enought to take M7, not so strong to kill M2/M1).

Ramming-ship, hmm, sound very Split-alike. Ofcourse its not graceful at all but it should be fun from time to time. The issue is that the AI won't really allow ramming (with the collision avoidance), so this would mainly be a playership.
I like the idea though of mounting capital ships in a M6, that's what I also tried to do with the Arowana, give it unconventional weaponry, this can lead to some interesting ships.

Artillery Ship (M2)
Capital class ship, specialized in bringing very strong, long range attack with slow cadence. Shape similar to Deca, but instead of compact hull there are lot of gaps. Basically it is very big laser, with bridge, engine room, engines, shields, few turrets and small cargospace glued on.
Ships is very defenceless in close combat, so it must take space from enemies, but when you need to destroy station, call for an artillery...
Pros: Huge damage (stations destroyed in 2-4 shots)
Cons: Very slow, defenceless against everything above M4, not great hull, little cargo capacity, weapons take long to recharge/fire again, projectile to slow to hit even slowest M2 (well, maybe Aran wouldn't escape)

I'm guessing what you mean here is basicly one big floating laser?
This would indeed be interesting to quickly clear a sector of stations after sending your main fleet to destroy enemy forces (I'm thinking about sector takeovers here.)
I also already thought that a ship designed to destroy enemy stations would be cool. The problem is you'd need to make new weapons for this (extremely high damage/shot with a very slow firing rate and a very slow bullets, this would make it near impossible to hit anything that is moving, and thus making stations the ideal targets. ).
Might do that some day, would have to learn how to make new lasers first though.

Battlecruiser (M2)
Slow, massive Battleship, specialized in capital ship fight, not very capable in fighting with fighters. Instead, carrying it's own fighters (small number). Can withstand big damage, can inflict huge damage, it's very hard to manouver (RPM like Aran).

Hehe we all like big guns, and the more the better. This is something I'll make some time (can't say how soon as I got a few others ideas to do first). I however don't want to make something that just flys in a sector and is capable of destroying anything that comes towards it, and fighters being to weak to actually hurt it.

Fast Super Freighter (TS)
Speed 175% of Mistral Super Freighter. Cargo space 50% of Mistral SF. That's all.

Making new freighters is also on the agenda. Already got a sketch from Italianmoose0 for this. Won't be a superfast one though, but that is something I could do some day too.

EDIT:

EDIT: Why I have feeling that my suggestions doesn't fit style of your mod?

I'm not that picky, I want a good mix of different ships, they just have to be possible for X3TC.

[J.I.Gorkij]

Hehe we all like big guns, and the more the better. This is something I'll make some time (can't say how soon as I got a few others ideas to do first). I however don't want to make something that just flys in a sector and is capable of destroying anything that comes towards it, and fighters being to weak to actually hurt it.

Maybe suggested stats will say more about my idea:

Turret:
Front Up: 8-10 PPC
Front Down: 8-10 PPC
(I suppose that there can be two turrets facing same side.)
Left/Right: 12 PRG
Up/Down: 12 PRG

Speed: 52
Hull: 500,000
Max shields: 5 x 2 GJ

Hangar: 8-15 fighters (just small number, like two wings and player ship)

[Topcross]

Maybe suggested stats will say more about my idea:

Turret:
Front Up: 8-10 PPC
Front Down: 8-10 PPC
(I suppose that there can be two turrets facing same side.)
Left/Right: 12 PRG
Up/Down: 12 PRG

Speed: 52
Hull: 500,000
Max shields: 5 x 2 GJ

Hangar: 8-15 fighters (just small number, like two wings and player ship)

I did understand what you mean. And I'm probably going to make something like this some day, just ment that it would require a lot of balancing. Also, ofcourse two turrets array can face the same way. Currently looking into making something that has four turret arrays to the same side Though I'm still having some issues with that ships so putt it aside for a while.
Would be shame to make two turret arrays face the same way though if you want to create what you could basicly call a moving fortress.

[J.I.Gorkij]

Would be shame to make two turret arrays face the same way though if you want to create what you could basicly call a moving fortress.

Well, I was thinking more about 60% M2, 25% M1 hybrid. Something like M2 Panther flagship.

Yes, sometimes I get feeling that I need overpowered flagship (once I mod special Odin to myself - increased lasers, shields, loadout with weapons like Tyr, ST cargo hold), but that usually leads to stop playing and (after while) starting from scratch, new game start.
There's no need for overpowered ship - it totaly destroys game ( I think).

What I miss in this game is in fact Starcraft Battlecruiser, because I love these ships.

[Topcross]

Well, I was thinking more about 60% M2, 25% M1 hybrid. Something like M2 Panther flagship.

Yes, sometimes I get feeling that I need overpowered flagship (once I mod special Odin to myself - increased lasers, shields, loadout with weapons like Tyr, ST cargo hold), but that usually leads to stop playing and (after while) starting from scratch, new game start.
There's no need for overpowered ship - it totaly destroys game ( I think).

What I miss in this game is in fact Starcraft Battlecruiser, because I love these ships.

Overpowered ships is something I'm trying to avoid at all costs.

About the Starcraft ship, going to have to shed some light on the matter there, never played the original and haven't bought the second one yet.

[J.I.Gorkij]

Moving Fortress, you say? What about huge ship, overpowered in every aspect except one - no shields Hull about 10,000,000; shields 0.

A: "I want ultimate sector cleaner! It's must-have."
B: "You can have one. Just be prepared for huge repair costs."

[Topcross]

Moving Fortress, you say? What about huge ship, overpowered in every aspect except one - no shields Hull about 10,000,000; shields 0.

A: "I want ultimate sector cleaner! It's must-have."
B: "You can have one. Just be prepared for huge repair costs."

Hmm tempting but Imma go with no

[J.I.Gorkij]

But back to reality - I think balanced M1/M2 could be very nice addition to the game. Offering flagship to the players without destroying game balance.

Balance it enough, so player can't clear Xenon sector just by himself (altough this can be done with M2, I haven't tried with M1).