#92
The ship in the front (enlarged Serapis) is very ugly. I'd suggest removing it. Everything else is fine, though.
----Goober5000---- Fanclub member.

#98
hmm, I could model the Pylos in Lightwave :nod:
Give me side front top and rear views as well as some angled ones (ive seen it before but I cant be assed to get pics so u supply them if u want a new model :razz: )
Also do you want the shapes more rounded or still angular? What styling are you after etc.
Will work on as soon as requirements are met :)

#99
Guys, I agree that the Ancients WERE much more advanced than the GTVA in FS2 when they met the Shivans.

- They've evolved for thousands of years in space while humans/vasudans are here only for some 300 years at most.
- Ancients conquered at least dozen of other races and had a vast interstellar empire while humans only met the vasudans as for now and altogether have like thirty populated systems.
- Ancients thus must have had almost unlimited resources and production capabilities the GTVA can only dream about.

Nevertheless they were utterly beaten and completely destroyed. That in my opinion should be the strongest point of the campaign - even a much stronger race with far greater capabilities was easily vanquished by the Destroyers, and that makes GTVA's future destiny even darker and much more hopeless.

UPD.

Ship design as to me is too mush shivan. Try to make them look absolutely different, put them vertically instead of horizontally as all known ships, etc.

If to say about new weapons you may try adding an Ancient's lightning/ion cannon. First capship uses thin (visible for the player) laser beam to trigger its target. After weapon capacitors are charged, the ship launches a lightning bolt that uses laser beam photons as its vector rail and hits the target thus making a mess with its electronics. Bang - enemy ship is absolutely helpless for 20 or 30 seconds.
The weapon will also visually look great.

By the way, if the targeting laser is off/not pointing on a certain target the weapon may be used in self defence - as a shield or a EMP bubble wave that will cripple all small ships that are closer than 3 km to such ship.
Last edited by Syder on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.

#100
Guys, I agree that the Ancients WERE much more advanced than the GTVA in FS2 when they met the Shivans.

- They've evolved for thousands of years in space while humans/vasudans are here only for some 300 years at most.
- Ancients conquered at least dozen of other races and had a vast interstellar empire while humans only met the vasudans as for now and altogether have like thirty populated systems.
- Ancients thus must have had almost unlimited resources and production capabilities the GTVA can only dream about.

Nevertheless they were utterly beaten and completely destroyed. That in my opinion should be the strongest point of the campaign - even a much stronger race with far greater capabilities was easily vanquished by the Destroyers, and that makes GTVA's future destiny even darker and much more hopeless.
Warning! Pedantry....
1/ The Ancients have dominated space for thousands of years, yes, but they've not had technological pressures to force development. I remember the developers stating a while back that the Ancients weapons were about FS1 level - they didn't have the power to punch through the Lucifer shields any more than the GTA/PVN did.

2/ Ditto applies for the empire size. A vast empire doesn't entail technological development unless there's evidence of an equal foe - the modern day USA has less of an 'empire' than the Romans did (or the C 19th British Empire), yet there's no doubt whose armies would win if we brought them into battle.

3/ Unlimited resources and production values doesn't mean superiority in anything beyond numbers. If you glance at a few battles, like anything in the Vietnamese war or going back to Rome vs Gaul (for example), quite frequently the side with numerical superiority loses in the face of better technology, training or tactics.

The one thing - the only thing, really - which the Ancients were indisputably good at was using subspace; from both tracking the Lucifer, theorising the consequences of its destruction (NB: this is mentioned in the ref bible rather than FS1, I believe), and of course the Knossos.

But I doubt the Ancients were significantly more advanced than the GTVA (as of FS2) are; just more numerous. In any case their weapons development is purely a matter for gameplay, because there's nothing pointing one way or the other.

#101
Nope... you're clearly confusing war and general economy.

- We still do not know if Lucifer's shield can be penetrated by conventional weapons AT ALL. Humanity had its wars as well, you know.
- I'm not implying just to the size, more the production and overall economy capabilities. Now take US economy and capabilities and Roman economy... :roll:
- You're confusing war and economy again. Unlimited resources mean unstoppable progress and development. Germany was much stronger in 1940 and almost got to the Moscow BUT the USSR had limitless manpower and resources - you know the consequences. On the other hand, advanced Rome was completely ruined by large number of barbarians with almost no scientific or technological level of development. So resources is in fact everything.

Finally - a race simply can't be much more advanced in one technology/science field and be much more inferior in all the other. Example - all ancient civilizations of our native Earth from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome.

#102
Nope... you're clearly confusing war and general economy.

- We still do not know if Lucifer's shield can be penetrated by conventional weapons AT ALL. Humanity had its wars as well, you know.
- I'm not implying just to the size, more the production and overall economy capabilities. Now take US economy and capabilities and Roman economy... :roll:
- You're confusing war and economy again. Unlimited resources mean unstoppable progress and development. Germany was much stronger in 1940 and almost got to the Moscow BUT the USSR had limitless manpower and resources - you know the consequences. The same advanced Rome was completely ruined by large number of barbarians with almost no scientific or technological level of development. So resources is in fact everything.

Finally - a race simply can't be much more advanced in one technology/science field and be much more inferior in all the other. Example - all ancient civilizations of our native Earth from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome.
1; The Lucifer was only impenetrable to FS1-era weapons - Volition explicitly stated this, I think back on the old VBB or FS Developer mailing list. I wish I had a list, but I think a few of the older community members can corroborate (Icefire maybe?).

(Granted, this might have been a retcon stated purely to explain why there was no lucifer-esque shielding)

2; re; USSR / Germany. The USSRs eventual victory was aided by the US lend-lease program supplying (for example) 18% of USSR military aircraft, over 2/3rds of trucks, and almost 2,000 locomotives (for logistics). In that situation the USSR had far from limitless industrial resources. Also, Germany was not halted just by the Russian defense but by its own mistakes - fighting a two front war and being ordered upon Moscow without sufficient supplies and logistics as part of this, in harsh winter conditions.

I'd agree that the USSRs eventual victory can be attributed to more men and material, but it's not as if we're talking a technological gap, is it? More of a technological crack, surely.

Resources are only valid if your kill:loss ratio is better than your economic ratio. And your kill:loss ratio is determined by tactics (which I'm presuming equality for) and who has the best weapons.

3; Why not? I'd agree that a lot of military technology is reused in civillian forms, but at no point in documented history (AFAIK) has any nation state existed outside of military pressure. Even outside of war, the competing aspirations of nations have pushed them to continue updating. But the Ancients are unchallenged, because they identify and destroy (or subjugate) any threat before it can even reach spaceflight capability.

So if the Ancients could expand as far as they wanted, and simply obliterate any potential future threat from orbit - what requirement is there to invest in developing new military technology, compared to when you're fighting a war (even a 'cold' one)? If, for example, the US didn't have to worry about Russia, China, etc and only fought wars like Afghanistan and Iraq - would much more than a B-52 really be required?

Also, it occurs to me that if we're going to compare the size of their empire to the GTA / PVN, then we have to bear in mind the Terrans and Vasudans came up against each other. Otherwise there would be no barrier to expansionism.



NB: I'd note that with the fall of the Western Roman Empire - and I probably should have provided more individual examples - it was overrun whilst in a state of decline rather than its pomp and glory. I'd also note that this fall has been attributed to the technological development of the horseshoe in Germany, and the West (at least) Roman armys increasing reliance on mercenaries. Although this in itself could be a nice parallel to the Ancients - a vast empire slowly decomposing through its own hubris.

#103
1. yep - now we can only speculate
2. that US aid was just a drop in an ocean compared to the loss of Ukraine, Belarus and Caucasus and those clearly meant - resources. If not for a USSR's capability of producing almost 1000 T-34 and over 300 fighters per month, who'd have known how that had ended.
3. there is no indication that Ancients conquered races in their infancy. They surely waged wars with spacefaring races as well. To fight Iraq US needs only bombers but US has also a much more powerful weapons capable of obliterating the whole world despite it never faced an equal opponent in real battle after 1945.

You imply that Ancients were humans, acted like humans, had the same motives, etc., but that is incorrect. They are completely different race. They might have been proud and ignorant (that we know for sure) warrior race for example. War might have been an essence of their life in that case they must have had mush more powerful weapons and means for waging an interstellar war. On the other hand that same pride and hyperemphasized glory (not corruption or bureaucracy) led their empire into possible decay and prevented them from noticing their mistakes in the war with shivans.

#104
1. yep - now we can only speculate
2. that US aid was just a drop in an ocean compared to the loss of Ukraine, Belarus and Caucasus and those clearly meant - resources. If not for a USSR's capability of producing almost 1000 T-34 and over 300 fighters per month, who'd have known how that had ended.
3. there is no indication that Ancients conquered races in their infancy. They surely waged wars with spacefaring races as well. To fight Iraq US needs only bombers but US has also a much more powerful weapons capable of obliterating the whole world despite it never faced an equal opponent in real battle after 1945.

You imply that Ancients were humans, acted like humans, had the same motives, etc., but that is incorrect. They are completely different race. They might have been proud and ignorant (that we know for sure) warrior race for example. War might have been an essence of their life in that case they must have had mush more powerful weapons and means for waging an interstellar war. On the other hand that same pride and hyperemphasized glory (not corruption or bureaucracy) led their empire into possible decay and prevented them from noticing their mistakes in the war with shivans.
1/ The FS mailing list was a great resource, incidentally - it's a shame it's now gone. I remember reading over a lot of it around 2001, and there was some handy info RE: general GTVA technology. From what I remember (for example) nanotechnology and anti-gravity were confirmed as available (ok, the former is obvious - but the latter at least maybe explains how so many bombs can fit into a support ship....).

2/ Mmm, i'm not sure a drop in the ocean is a correct definition. I'm not a fan of the (occasional) US 'we won the war, and you owe us eternally' viewpoint, of course, but it certainly had a more significant impact than you're saying - I've seen figures citing lend lease as contributing 57% of gasoline, and 30% of overall (i.e. including civillian) production (http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/L/e/Lend-Lease.htm). Although need to confirm those, and it's perhaps over-analysing in relation to the whole Ancient-Shivan war thing anything.

3/"And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.
And we saw other advanced life. And we subdued it or we crushed it.
In months, the elimination of billions of years of evolution. On a similar but slower path."
(Ancients monologues)

"I know why the Ancient Ones were destroyed. And I know what they knew.

I know that if not for the Shivans they would have been conquered long before.

Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered them long before, in their infancy. And destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed countless billions of others.

I believe it is only the destroyers who are destroyed. The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers. That is why there was no one to destroy us."
(End monologue)

Whilst it's not conclusive, you'd have to ask why they'd write something this specific if Volition didn't intend the Ancients as an 'oppressive' force which effectively removed non-subspace faring species.


I'm aware of the anthromorphic fallacy, but I think it's safe to consider given that a) it's (the race is) a human creation and b) the ancients are a clear parallel to the GTA/Vasudans in FS1. (this is excluding the hints - as they are only such - that the Ancients have an ancestral link to the Vasudans)

Take the following - "From what little information there is in the records, it’s learned that the Ancient’s civilization was one very similar to the Terrans and Vasudans, and that they were likewise annihilated by a mysterious space-faring race that showed no mercy or effort to communicate" (ref bible) - as you will.

#105
3) very inconclusive indeed - there is a good chance that Ancients might have met subspace faring race as well as many non-subspace capable. Humans really would have been destroyed in their infancy but not necessary that other races too.

Parallel or not - that is another theory. Terrans and Vasudans have something in common but they are much more different than similar in culture, motives, actions, economy and history. What's more interesting, it is clear that none of them explored space with conquering and destructive purpose unlike the Ancients. So that makes GTVA and Ancients much more different then similar as well. So the only parallel here that both of them were destroyed by the shivans.

Finally, yes the idea of this race was brought to life by humans, but I personally doubt that another sentient race will have at least something in common with ours.

In fact we are discussing the tech level here and if Ancients were at least 500 or 1000 years more advanced (remember, they were spacefaring for over millennia) then the GTVA, and if, as you say, they have much in common with us (what's more important with our will for constant development and progress) so they simply should have been much more advanced then GTVA is now - as simple as that. At least 500 years ahead.

What's more - I think that they met the shivans as their equals "They were like the others - strange, hideous, resisting, fighting. Only these were not like the others. They did not die." That may indicate that Ancients in their tech development were somewhere in the middle between the GTVA and the shivans.

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