[Mod] X-tended X-pantion [v. 1.4, OHEMGEE][RELEASED 2/16/2017]

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Tue, 1. Jul 14, 01:26

You mentioned something about a coloring book?

yup, the next update's doing to basically double the number of ships added, methinks. mostly because all the big-name Pirate factions are getting a handful of ships for their own use. and once we've figured out how do so, there'll be a script that adds them only to shipyards in sectors controlled by the associated group. we're also trying to puzzle out how XTC spawns Pirates, so we can get the various patrols using actual Pirate craft en-mass instead of main-race craft like they do currently.

more flavor! more immersion! more shiny ships to steal/blow up/by/run away from/get killed by! more options!

we love options! options are good!
also, once I'm done with the current batch of ships (which will be the 1.3 release,) I'm going to separate the Freighter replacements into a sub-module and give you the option of having the current modular freighters or a plethora of unique models for each variant. because I like me some visual diversity!

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Wed, 2. Jul 14, 00:59

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also.

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IT'S COMING.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Wed, 2. Jul 14, 21:02

so I was just finishing up the third ship today, and it occurred to me that I haven't really explained how the next-gen ship classes work.
so I shall elucidate, starting form the largest down to the smallest!

===Combat vessels===

Super-Capital Warships:
Supercapital Warships are characterized by their large size, the ability to mount most weapons, and the largest shield generators and turret batteries. in any given engaement, it is always the Super-capital warships that are the centerpiece of the battle.

Carriers
Carriers are among the largest warships flying. practically mobile stations in their own right, Carriers can dock dozens of strike-craft and corvettes in their cavernous hangers, and can often empty those same hangers in a staggeringly short amount of time. however, their immense size makes them slow, sluggish, and difficult or impossible to cover adequately with turret batteries. thus, Carriers should be kept well back from any combat, relying on their compliment of smallcraft to inflict damage.

Battleships
Battleships are huge, dedicated combat vessels with immense firepower at their disposal, and are capable of devastating any other capital warship they face. however, this focus on anti-capital weaponry leaves them reliant on escorts to deal with smaller threats such as Bombers.

Battlecruisers
Battlecruisers are powerful warships that mate firepower on-par with Destroyers to midrange fighter hangers, producing a potent combination of raw power and long-range force projection. however, most battlecruisers tend to be on the upper limits of size for adequate turret coverage, rendering them more reliant on escorts than some smaller capital vessels.

Heavy Cruisers
smallest of the Super-capitals, Heavy Cruisers are midrange warships that can often to 'a little of everything,' mounting decent firepower, while some have missile tubes, or external docking clamps, or modest fighter hangers or similar 'not-just-a-gunbus' support functions.

Capital Warships:
Capital Warships are large, heavily-armed and heavily shielded combat platforms that are the mainstay of any given battle. while usually smaller than supercapital ships, Capital vessels are typified by leanness and specialization greater than that of the Super-capital ships. while this tendency often makes them lass able to respond to any situation, Capital craft are often more efficient at their given role than any supercapital vessel.

Destroyers
Destroyers are dedicated combat vessels with a large amount of firepower. while not able to match the sheer brute power of Battleships and lacking the characteristic hangers of Battlecruisers, Destroyers are none-the-less potent warships in their own right, mounting all-around firepower and more able to deal with small ships like Corvettes or Fighters due to being small enough to mount overlapping turret batteries.

Cruisers
Cruisers are typically larger and slower than frigates, and are often called 'Budget Destroyers' or 'Budget Battlecruisers' due to their tenancy to resemble those larger warships, but being generally less capable and less costly than their larger cousins.

Frigates
Frigates are the most wildly divergent of the general classes, and the most numerous of all capital and super-capital warships. while individual frigates vary wildly, most come in a few distinct flavors: Flack Frigates mount omnidirectional turret batteries and are usually armed with anti-fighter weaponry, incapable of carrying larger anticapital weapons. Attack or Assault Frigates are dedicated anti-capital warships intended to support larger ships or act as the center of a light patrol. Light Carriers and Drone Carriers act as force-projection ships, Drone Carriers with their hordes of automated attack craft and Light Carriers with their piloted fighter wings. Missile Frigates are long-range bombardment vessels that, while typically lacking secondary turrets, are none-the-less among the most deadly warships due to their ability to engage from well out of range of most combat vessels with heavy ordnance, up to and including Fusion, Fission and Antimatter warheads.

Strike Craft:
Strike Craft are smaller ships such as Fighters and Corvettes. any large-scale battle can involve large numbers of strike craft, since they are relatively inexpensive compared to even small Capital warships.

Corvettes and Heavy Corvettes
Corvettes are large strike-craft that mount heavy shields and turret batteries. largely considered to be in the range between Frigates and Fighters, they are fairly common in and inexpensive.

Bombers
Bombers may be small, but they pack a nasty bite: heavy anti-capital missiles. these small ships are one of the leading causes of capital-ship destruction, as their small size and higher speed and maneuverability allows them to get 'inside' a capital vessel's optimal engagement range, dodge incoming fire, and release their deadly payload.

Heavy Fighters
Heavy Fighters mount the most powerful shields, largest gun batteries, and best shields in a combination that makes them extraordinarily deadly to all other strike-craft. even Corvettes can have trouble with a wing of heavy fighters.

Space Superiority Fighters
while not as fast as Interceptors or and as well-armed as Heavy Fighters, Fighters nonetheless possess a decent turn of speed, fairly good weapons loads, and adequate shields.

Interceptors
Interceptors are rapid-response craft with oversized engines that make them the fastest combat strikecraft flying. while not given much in the way of weapons or shields, Interceptors rely on their speed and maneuverability to avoid damage, flying rings around any other craft.

Scouts
Scouts are small, blisteringly fast craft that are meant for one thing, and one thing only: zipping around with their Triplex Scanners to provide intelligence for their commanding organization. often given only perfunctory armament, as Scouts can outrun even most missiles.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Wed, 9. Jul 14, 06:55

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so I was riffing on Eve ships today and this happened.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Fri, 11. Jul 14, 05:29

Anubitus · Post by **Anubitus** » Thu, 17. Jul 14, 01:46

hey mech,

are those cool looking freighter ships still coming to the next release..?

great looking ships man

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Fri, 18. Jul 14, 01:44

Edit: err wait a sec, the freighters are already out. I think. *checks* yeah. go get 1.2.1 if you don't have it already- I keep the latest release as a DL link in my sig, as well as on the very first post.

'coruse, I'm eventually gonna split them off int a sub-module and let you pick between those or unique purpose-built ships which are at best rough sketches in my notebook around which I squeeze my Astronomy notes, but they're coming eventually.

I've been on a Terran kick the last few weeks, so the next release is "whenever I finish the Terran/ATF replacement roster and get everything in-game and working," which also means digging through some old HDDs looking for my Terran turrets, because the stock ones look like rubbish on those shiny white hulls.

also, [Hype intensifies]
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USC Corvette and Destroyer, respectively.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Tue, 26. Aug 14, 04:43

TESTING REPORT:

Stilettos are big bastards, and even more intimidating ingame than I expected.

also, Mass Driver equipped M5s are the devil, and why did I think that was a good idea and stop blowin' holes in my ship!

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Sat, 4. Oct 14, 01:05

back at it. got... slightly distracted because Skyrim showed up in Steam's weekend bargan-bin.

anyhow, just got to get through some fiveish ships, so expect an actual update in the immediate future.

also, I got tired of the Ranger being a ****** Nova clone. it is now a beastly fast and maneuverable quad-engine thingy. still no guns, but now it can actually run the **** away from things.
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edit: so are image tags just not working right now or something?

Post by **X2-Illuminatus** » Sat, 4. Oct 14, 10:48

Mechanis wrote:edit: so are image tags just not working right now or something?

Fixed.™ The weblink to the image, which is placed between the img-tags, has to end on an actual file type ending (e.g. jpg). In your link behind the url the word "~original" was placed for some reason. I removed that.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Sat, 18. Jul 15, 05:40

*ninja appear*
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*ninja vanish*

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Wed, 22. Jul 15, 21:04

http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... tme991.png
What's this?
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... vjc9hp.jpg
INGAME SCREENSHOTS?!?!?
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... sizkxt.png
madness!

so, by the way, not dead.

{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Mon, 27. Jul 15, 00:45

More Glamor shots from 1.3:
Terran Glave Corvette

Pirate Smuggler Light Carrier

Pirate Coyote Corvette

Teladi Moa Corvette

USC Poinard Fighter on the attack

ARE YOU HYPED YET!?

(also, this forum has such small img limits lolz)

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Mon, 27. Jul 15, 04:26

more pretty pictures:

Eel Heavy Fighter

USC Stiletto Heavy Fighter*

Metis Cruiser

Lamprey Light Carrier

USC Sai Light Fighter**

Nightshade Battlecruiser

Bandit Interceptor

Thief Heavy Fighter

Feeeed meeee your comments~ (also, expect MOAR pretty pictures as release grows near)

*has WAY TOO DAMN MANY guns. seriously the front arc of that thing is basically DEATH for anything not packing capital-grade shielding. that includes corvettes.

**Mass Driver equipped M5s are the DEVIL OW OW OW MY PRECIOUS HULL POINTS

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Wed, 29. Jul 15, 07:28

SOUND THE ALARM! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES! CLOSE ALL SHOPS IN THE MALL! SECURE ALL ANIMALS IN THE ZOO-

Gimme that thing you gibbering coward! Now hear this! Now hear this! One-point-three is now Live at mediafire! come and get it while it's hot, don't mind how blatantly unfair the Stiletto is!

darkstar one · Post by **darkstar one** » Mon, 3. Aug 15, 09:34

hello mechanis , i gave this a try and i must say loving the ships , however i came across a possible bug that made me uninstall it ,

it seems to be missing the acynonix [or however it spelt] split boarding corvette ,i had a good amount of them in my fleet being turned into undefined WWW tanker thingies, fortunately that seems to be the only thing wrong with this lovely expansion pack

i was fortunate to have flown to an unknown sector and make a save i could revert back incase of bugs

i installed as a false patch rather than overwrite anything ...so reverting back was really easy

hope this helps

Beyondfubar · Post by **Beyondfubar** » Tue, 4. Aug 15, 05:43

These look great, do they work with XTC 2.2 AP?

Went ahead and installed but don't think I am seeing them.

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Fri, 14. Aug 15, 05:07

@beyondfubar: currently AP compatibility is not supported, since I (as the main tester and 'person who actually knows how to make most of this stuff work ingame') don't have it, and thus cannot add support. I believe, however, that one can find basic instructions on how to transfer a TC mod into AP's environment elsewhere on the forum, but that may or may not cause breakages.

@DS1: that sounds like you're using an incompatible build of XTC, such as 1.5 or such- as far as I'm aware, 2.0 is the latest stable release and is thus what XPM is based on- if that's changed, it's a simple (if semi-tedious) matter to fix, but I really don't have the patience to deal with experimental or not-confirmed-as-stable builds.

becuase they tend to frak things up, and then it's bouncing between your base mod and the third-party addon mod and the base game to figure out what the problem is, and most people just DO NOT want to deal with that.
additionally, if you're using the plugin manager or other forms of add-ins to Tships, it will (obviously) break horribly because of file incompatibilities.

now to get back to figuring out why those $%^E&&$^ing turrets aren't animating. and why adding stations to waretemplate apparently breaks it despite being literal cut-and-pastes of existent fabs with alternate IDs. because I worked hard on those Pirate stations dangit!

also attempting to puzzle out how the hell the docking clamps work, because wow those things are annoyingly weird. *grumbling*

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Thu, 18. Feb 16, 03:12

BIGGER

BETTER

BOLDER

1.4 is coming

Mechanis · Post by **Mechanis** » Fri, 19. Feb 16, 00:32

The smuggler's best friend:

Teladi Hawk Blockade Runner Corvette

New in 1.4: Courier Boat fast TPs and Blockade Runner Fast TS Corvettes

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[Mod] X-tended X-pantion [v. 1.4, OHEMGEE][RELEASED 2/16/2017]

Release Imminent