Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:23 am
Vanilla Plus
I'm thinking about putting together a mod, for single-player use, calling it "Vanilla+"
The aim is to make a few minor perfections while remaining religiously faithful to the standard "vanilla" version of the game. Basically I don't want to change the gameplay, except fixing a couple bugs, gaffes, and oversights. Beyond that, the aim is to augment the play with a few modest additions -- the sorts of things that the original designers would have done to "finish" the game, given more time and resources. Not introducing anything particularly new, or significantly changing anything already present -- just perfecting the single-player experience.
I'll be posting questions and specific discussions to the relevant "mod/editing" forums, but I thought I should start by addressing the *players* with this idea, and perhaps generate some discussion of desirable additions.
One of the ideas is to put the shields right. As it is now, the Graviton shield of any given class is always superior to the other two, regardless of the enemy's loadout. Obviously this takes the fun out of choosing, which was clearly the game's original intention. (Thus the level 10 Graviton shield can be made available as well.)
Another idea is to get the Paralyser missile up and working. As the description says "further hits with the Paralyzer will also disable a target's powerplant and guns." This would be really cool, if it's possible. Sort of like the cruise-disruption effect, but for the gun battery instead.
A major effort will be to present more of the graphical content. As it is now, there's several thruster models in the /DATA/ files, but only one is ever used by the game. So one nice touch would be to assign different models to the different thrusters. It's the same situation with the shield-generator models, and there's one or two additional gun models which could be put to use.
Definitely going to add the CSV to the Junker and Hogosha bases, and the Blood Dragon version of the Dragon will be sold on Kyoto (otherwise identical to the standard Dragon, I expect). I intend to add the Starblazer as well, but that will be it for new ships. (Making everything available would be fun, but that's in the domain of other mods, which are free to change the gameplay howsoever they like. Vanilla+ is far too conservative for that.)
Now that the CSV is being added to the Junker bases, I might move Rochester's Bloodhound and Trafalgar's Legionnaire to their respective homes -- the CSV would be sold on Rochester and Trafalgar, and the Bloodhound moves to Buffalo, and the Legionnaire to Cadiz.
So please let me know what you think, and please do fire away with any other suggestions.
The aim is to make a few minor perfections while remaining religiously faithful to the standard "vanilla" version of the game. Basically I don't want to change the gameplay, except fixing a couple bugs, gaffes, and oversights. Beyond that, the aim is to augment the play with a few modest additions -- the sorts of things that the original designers would have done to "finish" the game, given more time and resources. Not introducing anything particularly new, or significantly changing anything already present -- just perfecting the single-player experience.
I'll be posting questions and specific discussions to the relevant "mod/editing" forums, but I thought I should start by addressing the *players* with this idea, and perhaps generate some discussion of desirable additions.
One of the ideas is to put the shields right. As it is now, the Graviton shield of any given class is always superior to the other two, regardless of the enemy's loadout. Obviously this takes the fun out of choosing, which was clearly the game's original intention. (Thus the level 10 Graviton shield can be made available as well.)
Another idea is to get the Paralyser missile up and working. As the description says "further hits with the Paralyzer will also disable a target's powerplant and guns." This would be really cool, if it's possible. Sort of like the cruise-disruption effect, but for the gun battery instead.
A major effort will be to present more of the graphical content. As it is now, there's several thruster models in the /DATA/ files, but only one is ever used by the game. So one nice touch would be to assign different models to the different thrusters. It's the same situation with the shield-generator models, and there's one or two additional gun models which could be put to use.
Definitely going to add the CSV to the Junker and Hogosha bases, and the Blood Dragon version of the Dragon will be sold on Kyoto (otherwise identical to the standard Dragon, I expect). I intend to add the Starblazer as well, but that will be it for new ships. (Making everything available would be fun, but that's in the domain of other mods, which are free to change the gameplay howsoever they like. Vanilla+ is far too conservative for that.)
Now that the CSV is being added to the Junker bases, I might move Rochester's Bloodhound and Trafalgar's Legionnaire to their respective homes -- the CSV would be sold on Rochester and Trafalgar, and the Bloodhound moves to Buffalo, and the Legionnaire to Cadiz.
So please let me know what you think, and please do fire away with any other suggestions.