Website Update - Nov 23rd

Eder

Mr. Standoff
Seeing as how this is the first time we have new screenshots since... forever... I guess this update deserves its own thread. Here's me with the news. :p
Ok, really, we're making much more progress than the frequency of our news updates would indicate :-P. Although, unfortunately, it no longer seems possible to finish Episode 5 in time for a 2008 release, we're getting close, and you can expect a release date announcement soon.

On the progress page, you can see that the cutscene/briefing voiceovers have turned blue, and "additional videos" has turned green. "Additional graphics" remain green, but they're very, very close to blue - they should be greenish blue, really :-P. I've just finished the very last of the cockpits - every flyable ship now has a cockpit. So, if you've ever wanted to see the inside of a Talon, head on over to the screenshots page. Also, a few more ships have appeared on the progress page, and immediately went blue - these are the very, very final additions to Standoff, though ;-). These new ships include the Salthi, Dralthi and Bloodfang. These ships aren't really slated to appear in the campaign, but the Dralthi and Salthi at least will show up in sim missions. And of course, like any other ship, you'll be able to admire them in the in-game ship database (...and the website's ships page too, when I have a spare moment to update it :-P ).

Missions are making progress too - Pierre has recently been concentrating on scoreboard integration in the remaining six missions, while Quarto and Pedro are currently working on the winning path missions. Altogether, there are still four missions that have not yet been started, but next week that number should drop down to three.

As we gear up for the final offensive to finish this long-overdue episode, we'll be posting updates more frequently, too. I don't know if we'll manage an update every week, but hopefully close to it. In the last few months, there's been hardly any new screenshots. This will change also - today, we have two new screenshots for you, showing off the Morningstar and Talon cockpits. Expect more screenshots next week... :)
 
Nice job on the Morningstar! The cockpit is a dead ringer for the one in WC2. No doubt it has the Mace nuke as well.
 
You had me at "Dralthi"
Doh, those ships have been almost-completed for so long, I forgot I hadn't shown any screenshots of them yet. I've updated my previous post with the Salthi and Dralthi, but the Bloodfang will have to wait until I get the final version of the ship file from Q.

They should all see very little action in Standoff (we already have way too many ships), but hey, at least they're there now. Maybe someone can come up with a sim mission where it makes sense for obsolete ships or for the prince's guards to be flying around, I don't know - my job ends at making them look decent. :p
 
Talon With Which to Catch its Prey (November 25, 2008)

There's good news and bad news out of the Wing Commander Standoff mod team. In a recent news update they've officially announced that the final episode of the mod will not be out in 2008... but it is close (bonus good news: they will be updating their site more frequently in the coming weeks)! Here's the status report:
On the progress page, you can see that the cutscene/briefing voiceovers have turned blue, and "additional videos" has turned green. "Additional graphics" remain green, but they're very, very close to blue - they should be greenish blue, really. I've just finished the very last of the cockpits - every flyable ship now has a cockpit. So, if you've ever wanted to see the inside of a Talon, head on over to the screenshots page. Also, a few more ships have appeared on the progress page, and immediately went blue - these are the very, very final additions to Standoff, though. These new ships include the Salthi, Dralthi and Bloodfang. These ships aren't really slated to appear in the campaign, but the Dralthi and Salthi at least will show up in sim missions. And of course, like any other ship, you'll be able to admire them in the in-game ship database (...and the website's ships page too, when I have a spare moment to update it).

Missions are making progress too - Pierre has recently been concentrating on scoreboard integration in the remaining six missions, while Quarto and Pedro are currently working on the winning path missions. Altogether, there are still four missions that have not yet been started, but next week that number should drop down to three.




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Original update published on November 25, 2008
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BTW, it seems Eder forgot to mention last week's news update. Since the update was posted just four days after the previous one, there wasn't exactly much progress to speak of, so it was mainly a website update. A few more screenshots have been added (those Dralthi & Salthi shots, as well as four action shots featuring a Rigakh cruiser). Also, the Dralthi, Salthi and Rigakh have been added to the ships page along with their stats.
 
Was the Dralthi Mk II really all that obselete? It was a contemporary to the Morningstar, which isn't considered obselete at the time of Standoff. It was pretty fast, lightly shielded, and equipped with a pair of mass drivers and a few missiles (and presumably cheap enough to be mass produced in huge numbers)--in other words, a pretty close equivalent in capabilities to the Ferret and the Stiletto--Standoff contemporaries.

Yes, it would have been a little old then, but given the sheer numbers in which it was apparently produced, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were still kicking around.
 
The Dralthi Mk. II is definitely not contemporary to the Morningstar - it's more than a decade older. You might have meant the Rapier, though.

I found myself thinking about that as well, after we put the stats and description up on the website, and I saw its stats next to the Drakhri's stats. It's an odd kind of situation - the Drakhri is actually inferior to the Dralthi Mk. II in almost every way - it's less manoeuvrable, it has half the armour, half the manoeuvrability. In other aspects (speed, shields, missile loadout) it is more or less equal. There are only two areas in which it seems clearly superior - guns (three lasers give longer range and more or less the same killing power as two mass drivers), and decoys (the Dralthi never had any at all).

So, what gives? Well, first up, it certainly hasn't been completely replaced. Fleet Action even mentions Dralthi in the Battle of Earth - though you won't see them there in Standoff (we've got more than enough ships as it is). Secondly, we may yet slightly adjust the backstory we give on our website - the main point we were really trying to make in that backstory is that you won't see the Dralthi play a significant part in Standoff ;).

Thirdly, however, I would suggest that the Dralthi is indeed hugely inferior to the Drakhri, because it is, well, huge. The Dralthi measures 28 metres in length, and its width is almost as big. By comparison, the Drakhri measures 12 metres. Now, along the way, we've heard a lot of complaints about the gun arrangement on our Raptor, about how it's impossible to hit most ships with it. Well, yes it is - but while a Raptor has trouble hitting a Drakhri, it has a lot less trouble hitting a Dralthi. Other ships have it easier still. This ship is a bigger target than the Gothri - but it has neither the Gothri's armour, nor the Gothri's rear turret. It is literally a flying bullseye. Presumably, it also takes up a lot of space on the flight deck. Now, of course, the amount of ships you can store on a carrier depends on a lot of things - the amount of pilots you can accomodate, for instance. I would suggest, however, that since the Kilrathi aren't as attached to the idea of comfortable quarters as humans are, if they could fit three fighters in the space of one, they'd find a way to fit three pilots in the space of one, too.

Finally, about the pricetag - was the Dralthi really that cheap? I'd be surprised if its unit cost were lower than the Drakhri - common sense suggests that the Drakhri, being generally inferior would probably be the cheaper of the two (note that I don't mention size in this particular case - both ships weigh exactly the same amount, so the cost of the basic materials might be comparable).

(oh yeah, and the huge numbers - well, that's something we made up as well, so you gotta take it with the obsolescence, or leave it as well :). Strictly speaking, there's not evidence at all the Dralthi Mk. II was ever produced in huge numbers - for all we know, most of the fighting might have still been done by older Dralthi Mk. I)

Oh, and if anybody asks about the Salthi - see above, since the Salthi / Sartha comparison gives more or less the same impression :). Just looking at the basic stats, the Salthi could probably even give the Epee a fair fight... but once you take size into account, it seems like the Salthi might have some trouble hitting the Epee with more than one gun at any time - they're pretty far apart.
 
I would suggest, however, that since the Kilrathi aren't as attached to the idea of comfortable quarters as humans are
So they would sleep in their cockpits only to go out to the litterbox and get something to eat, that would save a lot of space(and probably smell bad) :p
 
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