Multiverse Mod

[rstaats10]

Campeador I found something to help prevent slowdown when I have lots of fighters (about 20 or more fighters) firing their weps. I took the effects bitmap of a torpedo bitmap and reduced it by 50% to 128 x 128 with no real noticable game difference in quality. By doing this my wep effects were firing much better. There was no slowdown as there was previously when I had the effects file at 256 x 256. It was as if the fighters were on "steroids" or something.

Another thing I try to do is keep the texture images sizes down to 256 x 256 for fighters and most ships for the most part. I do have some higher 512 x 512 for ships and what not. I noticed a lot of the fighters in multiverse have texture size 512 x 512. Try it out and reduce it down to 256 x 256 and see what you think. It will save memory use in the game.

Something else I want to share with you that I stumbled upon is that you can use jpg instead of bitmap for landscapes and portrait images. Just reference the images in the files as jpg instead of bmp. Big-time savings on file sizes. You may not what to mess with this now since it would take too much time to convert but in the future it is good to know.

[Campeador]

rstaats10, I am glad that you are finding new ways to increase performance on the game. Since you mention the jpg size the last time I have been experimenting with it and like you said no real noticeable game difference in quality. On the next mod the 512 x 512 skin textures of the ships will be reduced to 256 x 256 except for one or two that benefit from the higher resolution like the Arcadia (the main star of the story).
On my mod I do not mind changing anything but with the original game I try not to mess with what is already there since after all this time is well proven to work. But if reducing the effects bitmaps of the torpedoes improves the game so dramatically I will look into it.
I am not that concern about landscapes and portraits since the game stops when those are on the screen. My may concern is game play. I never thought about converting the bitmaps into jpg, I was pretty much following what was there on the original game, but you are right making this changes would have save a great deal of space on the hard drive, even thought the download will not be reduced more than what it is since both bmp and jpg graphic files do compress tremendously. You are also correct about making changes now in the middle of the series. It is an easy way to have a mess on my hands.
Changing ships skin size is easy and can be exchange in any of the campaigns on the fly without any problems since there are no changes on the code. The bitmap files is a different story since I have to change the graphic name calling from bmp to jpg and I want to use the same format from campaign one to the last and I do not want to go back and edit the first two campaigns. But on the next mod I will implement a few.

"It was as if the fighters were on "steroids" or something." mmm... that means that I can have even more fighters... I did have a scenario with over 100 capital ships but stretched over a long period of time, but so far my record is 66 fighters (not counting the ones on capital ships) appearing between 20 tics of time (that is that is like having all of them at once on the screen) on a scenario (Multiverse 2), ... mmm... Now if I can have more fighters than that run stable on my Athlon 2000+ (1.67GHz), mmm... the mayhem I can create!

[douglas]

Yeah, the picture is kind of obvious.

Good series, just finished part 3. I especially liked the gigantic battle at the end of part 2, and I was a little disappointed that part 3 didn't bring Harlock's part of the story up to that point - though I'm not quite sure whether he was present for that one or not now that I think back on it.

I think the EDF's level of success before the final stand shown in the end of part 3 was a bit too low. When I played through that sequence in part 1, the Musashi was long gone before Harlock showed up, and I don't remember the odds being quite that overwhelming.

I was mildly amused to note that the original assessment of the Wave Motion Gun in the Starblazers mod isn't quite accurate any more. One full power hit is actually not sufficient to destroy a Star Destroyer. One hit will cripple the ship pretty thoroughly, but it will still be able to fight back, just with greatly reduced firepower.

[Campeador]

Thanks for sharing Douglas. You made very good observations. Let me clarify some.

Harlock was not on either of the last two battles of Multiverse 2. Wildstar, captain of the Argo was wondering the same thing.

I had originally planned to make two campaigns for the Arcadia. But the second part would be after Multiverse 5 (if I were still planning to make it -will see). I know where I am going but the middle is still a little fussy. I am still pondering on Multiverse 6. As it is we will see the Arcadia again now and then on the rest of the series, but I want to give the player an opportunity to try the other ships.

Ok, on Multiverse 1 there were two alternative paths where concerning the Musashi (it seems that no one noticed!). If the Musashi was destroyed at Pluto then you would not have seen it at Mars. If you did not destroyed the Musashi at Pluto before the Starbase was destroyed, then the orders would have been changed and you would have been order to retreat to Mars (Making the battle at Pluto shorter). In this instance the Musashi would have showed up at Mars on the last battle.
Since it was possible for the Musashi to be present at Mars I decided to have it on Multiverse 3, just for the player to have a try at fighting her.

I remember two players commenting that their EDF ship was the last one standing at Mars. I try the scenario many times and in some instances I accomplish the same but in others the Outpost survived and even the Arcadia. How the AI does battle varies a lot. It is also difficult to recreate the battle identical to the version on Multiverse 1. On this instance the player ship, the Hood Battlecruiser, was on the battle since the beginning to the end (It had to be for the player to win!)
On Multiverse 3 the AI cannot do what the player does to make it last the whole battle. Also any ship on the players hand if far deadlier than the same ship control by the AI. Not to mention that the player can use items to do repairs. With this behavior it is difficult to recreate an identical battle from two different points of views unless all ships were AI controlled (but we want to play!). Then again the battle may have been more intense from the Arcadias’ point of view since it was fighting alone from the rear, while the Hood was being backed up by the Starbase, EDF fighters and destroyers. Also if the Hood would have been on a player hands there would have been far less enemy ships out there that would have make the Arcadia’s load lighter!
Since I cannot do an identical battle at least I try to capture the same flavor, which was like this:
“Late into the battle and after the third wave of the Illumidas forces entered the sector the Arcadia arrived. By then the thick of the battle was between planet Mars and the ‘Mars Outpost Starbase’ and the Hood and a few other EDF ships were barely holding.” – I think that I recreated just that.

The Wave Motion Gun, I did notice that also. Yet the WMC has been unchanged since the Star Blazers mod (at the time I never dreamed about facing Star Destroyers). It still does 8,000 of damage and it is only surpass by the SDF-1 Main Reflex Cannon' which does 10,000 points of damage. On the TV show the WMC is far more powerful; it can take out a whole fleet with a single shot. On Star Fury the weapon can only hit one target (on the game we can only have dozens and not hundreds like on the original story). At the time of Star Blazers mod 8,000 points of damage was more than enough to be able to take out any ship. So, on this game it remains unchanged, still the Argo can take down any enemy ship with a single shot from its own universe…
Do note that if you move the ship out of its short arc while firing the WMC it will not do full damage. Also the WMC can be interrupted by fighters getting on the way of the beam. But yes, the Star Destroyer can still survive a direct hit. It is in a class of its own. Armor and shields alone on any side is 4,000 points! The Arcadia better not try to ram it either.

By the way did anyone notice something peculiar about the ‘Cosmowing’ fighter?

[rstaats10]

Yes I see now the cosmowing fighter has a microfighter Bay. But on my cosmowing fighter there is no bullet fighter in the cargo hold for it to release. I will watch for this in the future to check for this. That would be cool to see the microfighter released from the cosmowing fighter.

I just finished the Battle at Zeta 3. That was hard. Took over 10 times. (escort ship was getting destroyed mainly) But I wised up and decided to used my ram nose (battering ram) to take out the 2 Zentradi ships. Worked like a charm first time I did this. Still took some fancy manuevering to get to next destination.

I really like this mod so far. I will post as I get more completed.

Btw tell your brother he did a awesome job on the Arcadia Texture. Pirate flags look really cool too!

[Campeador]

When you look at the Cosmowing on your bay, you will not see the fighters it contains. But when you use the 'Long range Scanner' and the Cosmowing is in flight you will see that it contains two Bullet fighters (bullet-1 and bullet-2). As any enemy approaches it will release the fighters just as any carrier do. It can only release one fighter at a time, so once one bullet is destroyed, and then it releases the second assuming that the Cosmowing Fighter Bay is not damaged.
It is not perfect since fighters never return back to their carriers since the AI carriers never recall back their ships. This means that if this Bullet survives it will just remains in space, while the Cosmowing can be recalled, re-launch and have more Bullets out.
The thing is that thanks to this the Arcadia can actually have 3 fighters out, plus an extra bullet making it 4!
The Bullets are really the weakest fighters the Arcadia posses. One uses two Energy Cannons and the other uses two Light Missiles. Also it is good to know that these Light missiles just like the Arcadia's side cannons (Sea Galeon Energy Cannons) can bypass shields.

The ram is a risky maneuver. You have to do some math before deciding to use it. Ram damage capacity + front armor vs. enemy shields + armor. Usually it can take out one Zentradi scout but I would not attempt a second ram since by then all the Arcadia's front Armor is gone.
On the TV show the Arcadia has a retractable weapon that someone called ‘The Big Freakin Bayonet’. I was trying to recreate something similar and what you see is my version.

[rstaats10]

Great job on Multiverse 3. Campeador! It was a lot of fun commanding the Arcadia. The Mod was a little more challenging than Multiverse 2. I particually enjoyed the last few battles. I enjoyed hacking the Illumidas fleets down. In the early battles, the Zentradi scouts proved to be most worthy opponents and the most difficult for me to take down. The Ram Nose for the Arcadia was cool (and usefull) too. This mod was flawless. I had no problems (errors) during the Mod. Thanks again for an awesome SF mod, Campeador!