WIP of TheUnknown - The Akula (mk II)

[King Class Scout]

Edit: Dalek taken seriously.  review moved to PM.

[Dalek]

It would be easier (and perhaps not so embarassing) if you send your beta reports through a PM.

[captain_obvious]

So what are you thinking of calling the dom war refit then?

[X_TheUnknown_X]

I think it's time to respond to some questions/issues raised about the Akula.

First of all, I'm going to redo the hardpoint (almost from scratch) to accomadate for the various power drains + overpowered subsytems on her. I've also just finished remapping the UV for the USS Akula, reducing texture wastage and going down from 84MB of textures to 40MB. Unfortunately, I can't get it down any further without making drastic changes to the UV map and model at this point.
Also, to King Class Scout mainly, the grilles on the warp nacelles will only glow when the ship is at warp; thanks to Adonis' TMP warp script (which it true to the movies). If you go to warp and they still don't glow, then either you don't have the necessary files for the script to work or I haven't programmed the ship properly.

Finally, the name for the Dominion War refit Akula will be... the USS Swiftsure, as suggested by Captain_Obvious. But I would have to say, it was very close between the Mannerheim and the Gepard. As King Class Scout said, it would need to be a name which said  "I'm gonna kick your ass from here to Borg Space".

NB: Beta test positions are now closed.

[captain_obvious]

"We're Sure she'll Swiftly kick kick their asses just don't take her underwater.
With love
The grease monkeys.
P.s.
Pun intended "
A note found on the captains chair on launch day.

Looks awesome

[King Class Scout]

I'll have to play with the warp, then.  i think it will work fine...I have the JJ's that have the scripts, both Baz's and Wileys.

I've just gone over my two Akulas.  the older akula i have is 2048's...yours is 1024's...so i know now it's NOT the texture size that nails me.  i need to check the scales between the two akulas.  if the scale is the same, it's the poly counts, if the polys are the same or close, it's the scale.  this will help me figure out my computer's stick point.  thanks

just glad to know my Kick your Ass style name inspired your pick.

[Lionus]

well, you could later release an alternate skin for Mannerheim.. pretty please? And I'll check the nacelle glow in warp too, I don't remember if they worked or not..

edit: nope, no nacelle glows. Isn't that script etc part of KM? if so, then it should work. Oh, and the blinkers DO work. I mixed them up with the lights on the top of the nacelles.

[King Class Scout]

I've just had a peek, myself.  have someone vet your warp lights script.  when warping, I have a sudden strange shift of the forward nacelle tip lights. they scooted backwards and slightly to the right, taking on a Plasma-blue glow.  since I have some trouble with warping (everything blacks out but the bridge set) i can't see a shut off when arriving at a system.

[Adonis]

Another thing I just noticed. In the custom/ships script, the warmup is like this:

Code: [Select]

"AdonisTMPWarpStartUp": {
"track": {
"akulanacelleextras_glow": {
0.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akulanacelleextras_glow.tga",
1.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akulanacelleextras1_glow.tga",
}
}
}
should be like this:

Code: [Select]

"AdonisTMPWarpStartUp": {
"track": {
"AkulaNacelleExtras_glow": {
0.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/AkulaNacelleExtras_glow.tga",
1.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/AkulaNacelleExtras1_glow.tga",
}
}
}

I've just had a peek, myself.  have someone vet your warp lights script.  when warping, I have a sudden strange shift of the forward nacelle tip lights. they scooted backwards and slightly to the right, taking on a Plasma-blue glow.  since I have some trouble with warping (everything blacks out but the bridge set) i can't see a shut off when arriving at a system.

Try this on that: go to scripts/custom/autoload and remove the extension of the LoadNanoFXv2Fixes.py and delete the *.pyc, that should fix it, the blinkers have a bug that they invert after warp so you cannot see a thing outside the bridge when that script is active. That came up when Leo wrote that script to address some issues with NanoFX.

[King Class Scout]

I've fixed the blinker goof, but i can't find a drop of the script sample you posted anywhere.  musta been looking in the wrong place.  oh, the actual function script in techs had a typo that python noticed.  bad tabbing?

got it.  all repairs made.

[X_TheUnknown_X]

It seems the problem I was having with the warm-up script was probaly native to my PC only, I did post my solution on my thread in BC Scripting. However, after remapping the textures (total filesize now 47.8MB), I decided to rename all the textures - and they all have lower case this time.

Anyway the USS Akula is back ingame, and I've been doing some of my own trial runs with her. The ship will stand a good chance against any TMP Era vessel now, although there is one flaw. If all combatting ships are equipped with my Torpedoes, the Akula will be able to win about a half of all battles, but if the enemies are equipped with the ZZST6Photons (which seem to be a standard on TMP ships for BC, and have very high damage and splash damage settings) then the Akula looses most of the battles. This means I will probably need to increase the damage of my torpedoes or equip the Akula with the ZZST6Photons.

Also, to Lionus, I can make the Mannerheim registry for the Dominion War Akula for you to use yourself, if you would like. But the Swiftsure will be the public release version.

[Lionus]

I would like that a lot. And in my tests, Akula was doing well against early Klingons and Romulans, as long as you did your best to avoid the torps and kept the phasers blazing. That blind spot in the rear must be guarded more tightly than fort knox..

[King Class Scout]

agreed.  i had several ships beeline straight for the Akula's six, and STAY there.  since I'm using a conversion program for a joypad instead of a keyboard...

[Lionus]

agreed.  i had several ships beeline straight for the Akula's six, and STAY there.  since I'm using a conversion program for a joypad instead of a keyboard...

and that's why I'm grateful of KM's thruster control ability. with some of the bigger ships I usually bump it up from 1/8 to 1/4 or even 2/4.. and suddenly, that huge ship turns INSIDED the enemy vessels trajectory, and that's when they usually veer off to avoid getting a full brunt from main phasers and tubes.

[X_TheUnknown_X]

Good news! I've managed to solve a problem with the warp warm-up script where the grilles stayed lit up even after warping  . Also, I've looked at the torpedo issue and bumped up my torpedoes' damage from 450 to 750 (the ZZST6's are 900 with 0.25 splash radius, higher than TNG torps  :eek ), but mine now have better guidance. Now, she will win most battles against the Akyazi, but with heavy damage - half against the Miranda (from ZZ's Miranda pack) and just under half against the Constituition (wins mainly because of better maneuverability). Shields have been improved - to offer better forward protection - and the warp core power has been increased; all systems online should only just start to drain auxiliary power, instead of draining herself dry  .

So, I think this means that the USS Akula can be considered finished. I'm going to check over and finalise a few things, but I will probably submit it to BCFiles by Wednesday.

To anyone whose interested, here is the code (to be placed in the ship's plugin) to shut down the grilles after warp:

Code: [Select]

Foundation.ShipDef.TUAkula.dTechs = {
"AdonisTMPWarpStartUp": {
"startTrack": {
"akula04_glow": {
0.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akula04_glow.tga",
1.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akula04a_glow.tga",
}
},
"stopTrack": {
"akula04a_glow": {
0.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akula04a_glow.tga",
4.0: "data/Models/Ships/TUAkula/High/akula04_glow.tga",
}
}
}
}

[X_TheUnknown_X]

The USS Akula is now completely finished, and I'm about to submit her to BCFiles (just writing up a readme). In the meantime, I've pushed ahead with the ISS Phobos and the textures are now finished there too. From here, I only need to make the speculars, hardpoints and plugins and she'll be ready to go.

Pics removed

[admiral horton]

great job i hope you'll do a federation version of this ship

[Nebula]

great job i hope you'll do a federation version of this ship

He has... look at the previous page and also read the poll on the top...

[X_TheUnknown_X]

With the USS Akula released, the Phobos shouldn't be too far behind. I've managed to the the Akula's evil sister ingame and she's performing brilliantly. The Phobos' more powerful weapons (now with new VFX and SFX by me) allow it to overpower a Miranda if you play it right (sonething the Akula found more difficult, only being a light cruiser). However, I think i've git it balaced fairly well, top impulse speed is about 4,000kph (Akula's more like 6,500) and top warp only 8.5, the sensors only work within 85km and the power system will only handle one system at 125% power (with the rest at 100%).
The next ship, the Swiftsure, I've begun texturing. I have a good explosion damage effect that, I personally think, looks realistic.

Pics of the Phobos don't do her justice, I think. But here they are:

[Lionus]

sweet  *eagerly waits for the DW version*  ;)