capi3101
Admiral
Hmm. Well, yeah, that is the sort of thing I'm looking for; some space to work where people can see what I'm doing.
I suppose there's no harm in asking the admins; worst they can do is say no and make me go somewhere else.
Wing Commander RPG
- Thread starter Wolfman
- Start date
Hmm. Well, yeah, that is the sort of thing I'm looking for; some space to work where people can see what I'm doing.
I suppose there's no harm in asking the admins; worst they can do is say no and make me go somewhere else.
capi3101
Admiral
Alright...I've registered at WCPedia's WC Junction forum. From what I could tell off of their site, that looked like the place I needed to try first. My account hasn't been activated yet; hopefully that'll happen soon. Not sure if I'll report on my progress here, at their forum, or both just yet. I suppose we'll see how things go.
Received a PM yesterday; haven't reviewed it just yet. Wednesday is my "free day", though, so I should be able to attend to it soon.
I've decided to get started with the sim route to work any kinks in the translation of the combat engine. I've begun work, though things have been going slowly so far. I anticipate weapons systems are going to give me the most trouble. Skills may also prove to be a challenge, though I have a little clearer picture of how I'm going to handle them.
Really, the big challenge is going to be the scope of everything. To do what I intend to do, I need to finish gathering as much information as I can on every craft and every weapon in the WC universe, from WC1 through Privateer 2. Y'all have been very helpful in that endeavor to this point, and I appreciate it.
Received a PM yesterday; haven't reviewed it just yet. Wednesday is my "free day", though, so I should be able to attend to it soon.
I've decided to get started with the sim route to work any kinks in the translation of the combat engine. I've begun work, though things have been going slowly so far. I anticipate weapons systems are going to give me the most trouble. Skills may also prove to be a challenge, though I have a little clearer picture of how I'm going to handle them.
Really, the big challenge is going to be the scope of everything. To do what I intend to do, I need to finish gathering as much information as I can on every craft and every weapon in the WC universe, from WC1 through Privateer 2. Y'all have been very helpful in that endeavor to this point, and I appreciate it.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I'm confused--this is the forum for the WCPedia.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
IF you are talking about the wcjunction website, then that website is pretty much dead and is in no way affiliated with us. They registered a wcpedia website and did minimal work on it and that site is also pretty much dead. By dead I mean it's very incomplete and there hasn't been any real activity on it in the last two years.
The proper WCpedia URL is here: https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Main_Page
Last edited by a moderator:
capi3101
Admiral
I was talking about the forum at http://wcjunction.com/phpBB2/index.php. There are posts on it as recent as last Friday, so I had assumed it was still a live board. If it is dead, it would explain why they still haven't activated my damn account.
What a shame; it really looked like a promising place to put the project up.
I don't think I could do the work at the "proper" WCPedia, at least not without special permission from the moderators; it'd be difficult to write a role-playing game from the standpoint of a 29th century research assistant...
Leave me where I was, I guess. No harm in asking the WCPedia moderators: anybody know who runs those boards?
What a shame; it really looked like a promising place to put the project up.
I don't think I could do the work at the "proper" WCPedia, at least not without special permission from the moderators; it'd be difficult to write a role-playing game from the standpoint of a 29th century research assistant...
Leave me where I was, I guess. No harm in asking the WCPedia moderators: anybody know who runs those boards?
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Any of the encylopedia projects are probably the wrong place to host an RPG project. We do some hosting at the CIC but that would depend on the extent of your plans . Also those are old guidelines for our Encyclopedia project that we're revising at the moment. Still, any hosting we would do would be separate from the WCpedia project.
WCjunction is... a strange thing. It's run by people involved with an offshoot of the old vegastrike/privateer remake project. In the last couple of months there's been a spurt of posts related to whatever the current itteration of that project is but beyond that it's been pretty dormant since 2009. I have no problem with them hosting your project if you can get ahold of them, but if they're that hard to get ahold of then I would be a little worried about what would happen if you ended up with server issues or the server goes down for any reason. Maybe those fears are unfounded but it's something I'd think about.
If you have a specific plan you would be just as well to email us the specifics so we could look into it at let you know if it's a fit for our solsector site.
capi3101
Admiral
Okay, is there a specific point of contact I should use? I saw a SolSector site when I looked it up via Google, but it doesn't look like its been updated since '08.
Really, all I need is access to a wiki. Any wiki will do. Preferably one that's publicly viewable. I have no intention of making anything other than a vanilla pnp role-playing game.
If you'd like an idea of the scope, there's a wiki version of SFRPG at http://wiki.starflight3.org/SFRPG.ashx; its got about a hundred pages that ultimately became a 30 megabyte PDF file in the finished product.
Haven't had much time to work lately, but I've had enough time to hit my first big design hurdle: Lasers in the WC1 era. Angel tells you prior to the first mission (Enyo 1, if I'm not mistaken) that it takes seven direct laser hits to destroy a Dralthi. The Dralthi has five centimeters of shields and 4.5 of forward armor, so that's 9.5 cm of protection total. If you go with the Privateer figure of 1.8 centimeters penetration for a laser, and you count for a couple of extra hits to destroy the fighter after the defenses are down, I can see this.
Based on the refire rate from Privateer of 0.3 seconds, and considering dual fire weapons, it'd take 1.2 seconds of continuous fire to down a Dralthi, given those figures.
So how come it always seems to take longer, and require more fire (i.e. more than seven hits), to down a Dralthi in WC1? I mean, I was playing the game the other day, and I was hammering away at a Dralthi whose shields and armor were long gone, and I guarantee you it took a good fifteen seconds before it blew......
Only possibilities I can think of are that a) the refire rate for ships in WC1 was slower, or b) they caused less than 1.8 centimeters damage per hit.
Kinda concerned about this - the Hornet's listed as 3 cm shields and 3 cm armor all around, which means it should be easier to take out than a Dralthi. Which is another thing that doesn't seem to be the case...
If anybody's got any hard data about what's going on here, I'd appreciate it.
capi3101
Admiral
Okay......got a wiki. The address is http://wcrpg.wikia.com/wiki/WCRPG_Wiki. Not much of the site to review at the moment, unfortunately.
I tried registering at SolSector earlier today (used the link off of wcnews.com >> Hosting >> Get Hosted >> Links >> Apply for Hosting). I got this message:
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Just thought I'd let y'all be aware of that.
Let's see......at this point I don't necessarily need space on y'all's server, but a forum might be useful. That's (of course) provided I didn't mess up here by jumping the gun and signing up a site at Wikia...
I tried registering at SolSector earlier today (used the link off of wcnews.com >> Hosting >> Get Hosted >> Links >> Apply for Hosting). I got this message:
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Just thought I'd let y'all be aware of that.
Let's see......at this point I don't necessarily need space on y'all's server, but a forum might be useful. That's (of course) provided I didn't mess up here by jumping the gun and signing up a site at Wikia...
TEOC Viper
Rear Admiral
What questions do you have about TEOC regs? As the poor schmuck who runs the software that governs combat for the last several years I'm more than happy to answer what I can as I am able to.
As for veering way off into AU land this is absolutely correct. That was done many years ago with plot points and the decision to not include WCP's plot in our game as we had already done/planned something similar to it (though we have been rolling in some of WCP generalities as we get closer to the time it occurs in verse proper).
As for veering way off into AU land this is absolutely correct. That was done many years ago with plot points and the decision to not include WCP's plot in our game as we had already done/planned something similar to it (though we have been rolling in some of WCP generalities as we get closer to the time it occurs in verse proper).
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
The wiki sounds like a good place to start. We generally don't set up Solsector accounts and forums until a fan project already has some content developed already. We can look into the broken link though. If the wikia place doesn't have its own forum, and until your project has enough message traffic to move into its own forum here, we'd recommend you use the general Fan Projects & Editing forum (where we are now).
capi3101
Admiral
Well, first, it's nice to make your acquaintance.
The questions I had about TEOC mainly had to do with the engine. My first question is: how does the system tell who's in a position to fire on whom? Is there some kind of grid that's visible to the players that lets them know where their fighters are in relation to one another, or is it literally a matter of the players saying "I maneuver into position behind the bad ol' putty-tat", and the game does it?
Related to that question: is there any accounting done in-game for range to target?
I've also been trying to figure out how the numbers for damage points were arrived at, both for weapons and fighters. There doesn't appear to be any kind of straight correlation between the published damage/defenses of the weapons and ships in the WC3 documentation and what's in TEOC. Any light you could shed here would be very helpful.
The regs have been helpful in determining the sorts of things that might make an appearance in the RPG; I'm doing my utmost not to plagiarize them too much.
......and where's the specs on the Bearcat?
That's all I have at the moment. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. I'd love to join the game, but I don't think I have the time.
capi3101
Admiral
Alright, I can do that then. Probably just post here until I've got something of enough import to warrant a separate discussion thread.
The Wikia place supposedly has its own forum, though I haven't figured out how to use it yet. In fact, I'm still learning the ropes over there; there are some substantial differences between editing pages on Wikia and ScrewTurn markup (what I'm used to). I think I've about got tables figured out though; a very important step. TOC's up at this point too.
TEOC Viper
Rear Admiral
Please be mindful of the rambling and bouncing about... writing this from memory between phone calls at the office.
Short answer the 'engine' does not handle the positioning. Long answer, the HCP holds vessel data and processes the various actions and attacks. Many many moons ago a grid map was posted into the irc channel to show generalized positions. The host is responsible for keeping track of who are where. Their ranges to target and general position are doled out via 'flavor text' at the start of each round. with a good amount of dice rolls (known to us as teh fates) tossed in for situational randomness when is appropriate.
As far as fighters are concerned there are three primary base ranges. torpedo/long range IR range, missile range, and gun range. The rule of thumb for us unless a fighter (either you or the enemy) is defensive or explicitly breaks away you close one 'distance unit' per round.
Capships are handled a little different, though there is no offical reg to go along with it. The weapon ranges used now are determined by the type of weapon they are and their general role in combat: point defense, 'anti aircraft', anti ship, heavy bombardment etc. Missiles are a straight forward just that there is an additional range over those for the fighters as some capships are armed with extended range IR missiles .
Then you have issues like are you playing chicken with a fighter and want to use heat seekers on him.. if your craft can auto slide just zip right past him kick in the turn and fire the missiles as your traveling away. Otherwise in a truer sense you'd have to engage in a manuever, which depending on the situation I might make the character throw a check. But if it's with in reason I usually just let them do it. But there's also common sense things like doing a straif (in the hcp as a split attack as it implies going after two targets with your guns, rockets, or stormfire), assuming that you have the gun points/ammo to pull it off the targets have to be relatively close do each other.. no targeting the dralthi on your wingman's tail and flipping 180 degrees to go after the vaktoth fighting in a furball on the otherside of your 'gun range.' unless use autoslide. For us actions and manuevers are a combination of exercising common sense, trying to be fair, and not making it so technical that you have to roll the dice to make sure that you can throttle up. Our objective is to tell a story and have fun while doing it.
The varying attack modes, along with modifiers that belong to the vessels themselves can either enhance or be a detriment to what your trying to do, which are also combined with the stats for the pilot in question. In our system all of this is done behind the scenes and the player only rolls for their attack, decoy, evade, dodge, eject... whatever else the host says to do a check on.
Ship values/weapon damage. I wish I could provide insight here. The only correlation in the stats are to themselves. How Zilor between this ineration of the rpg and the one that existed that he was in before had the stats come out as they are I don't know, beyond that alot of it's hard set in the hosting program he wrote for it. And that he used the premise that most of the 'armor stats' for a fighter/capitalship are from the superstructure, not the armor itself. Prior to his departure, we had been looking at ways to modify the game.. factor in weapon rate of fire.. fixing it so a fighter's gun damage is based on each gun/hit instead of each hit being the average value across the grid, but we decided at the time it wasn't worth the work to redesign everything to make that doable.
As to the bearcat.. well it's there, just in the versions of the regs that are the 'starters' and lurk about are infact ancient as all get out. But I keep vessel stats (to a varying degree of detail depending on if it's enemy, friendly, how 'known the design is' etc etc) available a subforum on our website, accessible to active players only.
It was our founder's wish for people to use the regs if it was useful to them. If parts of it, then all means use what you can.. just provide credit where it's due.
As for the joining/time thing, completely understand the rpg as it is now is a far cry from the olden days, but let me tell you hosting when your dealing with 20+ people, even with a computer program helping with combat... hello nightmare.
While doing big honking space battles is nice, watching a movie or cooking a meal between attack and defense segments of a round.. not so much. Bottom line thanks for the interest and curse there not being enough hours in the day!
We don't keep too much contact with the community at large and playing in our own little corner of AUsville (admittedly we let the game run auto pilot alot and address major issues as needed cause being responsible adults suck and doing everything I could possibly think of to the rpg would be a full time job), I'm more than happy to help explain out various mechanical details or other issues that are in our regs or be a sounding board for concepts.
Short answer the 'engine' does not handle the positioning. Long answer, the HCP holds vessel data and processes the various actions and attacks. Many many moons ago a grid map was posted into the irc channel to show generalized positions. The host is responsible for keeping track of who are where. Their ranges to target and general position are doled out via 'flavor text' at the start of each round. with a good amount of dice rolls (known to us as teh fates) tossed in for situational randomness when is appropriate.
As far as fighters are concerned there are three primary base ranges. torpedo/long range IR range, missile range, and gun range. The rule of thumb for us unless a fighter (either you or the enemy) is defensive or explicitly breaks away you close one 'distance unit' per round.
Capships are handled a little different, though there is no offical reg to go along with it. The weapon ranges used now are determined by the type of weapon they are and their general role in combat: point defense, 'anti aircraft', anti ship, heavy bombardment etc. Missiles are a straight forward just that there is an additional range over those for the fighters as some capships are armed with extended range IR missiles .
Then you have issues like are you playing chicken with a fighter and want to use heat seekers on him.. if your craft can auto slide just zip right past him kick in the turn and fire the missiles as your traveling away. Otherwise in a truer sense you'd have to engage in a manuever, which depending on the situation I might make the character throw a check. But if it's with in reason I usually just let them do it. But there's also common sense things like doing a straif (in the hcp as a split attack as it implies going after two targets with your guns, rockets, or stormfire), assuming that you have the gun points/ammo to pull it off the targets have to be relatively close do each other.. no targeting the dralthi on your wingman's tail and flipping 180 degrees to go after the vaktoth fighting in a furball on the otherside of your 'gun range.' unless use autoslide. For us actions and manuevers are a combination of exercising common sense, trying to be fair, and not making it so technical that you have to roll the dice to make sure that you can throttle up. Our objective is to tell a story and have fun while doing it.
The varying attack modes, along with modifiers that belong to the vessels themselves can either enhance or be a detriment to what your trying to do, which are also combined with the stats for the pilot in question. In our system all of this is done behind the scenes and the player only rolls for their attack, decoy, evade, dodge, eject... whatever else the host says to do a check on.
Ship values/weapon damage. I wish I could provide insight here. The only correlation in the stats are to themselves. How Zilor between this ineration of the rpg and the one that existed that he was in before had the stats come out as they are I don't know, beyond that alot of it's hard set in the hosting program he wrote for it. And that he used the premise that most of the 'armor stats' for a fighter/capitalship are from the superstructure, not the armor itself. Prior to his departure, we had been looking at ways to modify the game.. factor in weapon rate of fire.. fixing it so a fighter's gun damage is based on each gun/hit instead of each hit being the average value across the grid, but we decided at the time it wasn't worth the work to redesign everything to make that doable.
As to the bearcat.. well it's there, just in the versions of the regs that are the 'starters' and lurk about are infact ancient as all get out. But I keep vessel stats (to a varying degree of detail depending on if it's enemy, friendly, how 'known the design is' etc etc) available a subforum on our website, accessible to active players only.
It was our founder's wish for people to use the regs if it was useful to them. If parts of it, then all means use what you can.. just provide credit where it's due.
As for the joining/time thing, completely understand the rpg as it is now is a far cry from the olden days, but let me tell you hosting when your dealing with 20+ people, even with a computer program helping with combat... hello nightmare.
While doing big honking space battles is nice, watching a movie or cooking a meal between attack and defense segments of a round.. not so much. Bottom line thanks for the interest and curse there not being enough hours in the day!
We don't keep too much contact with the community at large and playing in our own little corner of AUsville (admittedly we let the game run auto pilot alot and address major issues as needed cause being responsible adults suck and doing everything I could possibly think of to the rpg would be a full time job), I'm more than happy to help explain out various mechanical details or other issues that are in our regs or be a sounding board for concepts.
capi3101
Admiral
I understand. Believe me, I understand...
I see. So, lemme make sure I understand here: there is a program that the host uses to keep track of things like random number generation, but the game itself is being run by an actual player (in most RPGs, they'd be called a GM). Is that correct? And it's the GM's responsibility to actually keep track of where all the combatants are?
So ranges are generally handled categorically? (e.g., "The Dralthi is in gun range", as opposed to "The Dralthi is 4000 m directly ahead")?
There's another question in there: what's a rough time equivalency to a round in TEOC? (e.g. in D&D, a round equals six seconds)
And how does the engine determine who gets to go first during the course of a turn? Is damage resolved simultaneously, or does it depend on who gets to go first (i.e. when a Dralthi gets blown up prior to its move in the course of a round, does it still get a chance at a parting shot, or is it instantaneously vaped)?
Yeah, the storytelling aspect is why I got into RPGs in the first place...
Darn. I don't mind doing my own versions of the weapons, but a little insight would've been nice. I mean, from my experience, the Photon Cannon is better than a Laser Cannon...
Oh well. Probably for the best anyway.
Okay. So the stats are there...I'd just have to join up to stea.....I mean, to look at them...
Okay, thanks. If I wanted to mention the regs in with the disclaimers and other legal portions of the game, what exactly should it say?
I believe it. I've written some pnp games that (in theory) could handle an indefinite number of players, but when it got much above half-a-dozen ships, the battles could easily last for hours. Can't imagine doing something like that for twenty...
I appreciate the help you've given me so far. Thanks.
TEOC Viper
Rear Admiral
Wanted to compose this, or try to, before bed so here goes nothing.
The hcp (host combat program) in conjunction with an access database handles the 'addons' you'd have with a traditional pnp game, making it so the player only has to determine their action.. and in the case of attacks, their attack mode, shield/weapon power configuration, attack used, unit being targets and then the base roll for the attack.. a dice script (that pops right into mirc ) handles the rand generation for the dice. The host programs the session information into the hcp itself and handles the enemy actions, translating the players actions into the program and then letting it display the result.
as host, gm, dark lord of the hcp.. whatever you want to call it I am responsible for telling the players the situation at the start of each round or when something note worthy happens (more fighters have launched, jumped out, someone's mothership's been destroyed etc).
For simplisty on my part I've found it easier to say that your in range 'x' if you start working out exacting distances, then you have to factor in weapon ranges etc and like the whole refire issue, there is a fine line between what's realistic and what's fun/a pain in the butt. As for time per round we do tend to go with the D&D '6 seconds' per round.. it might be a little longer but the method is still sound.
the hcp itself does not determine who attacks when depending on the situation one side or the other might be given base initiative due to a grossly failed check... or an ambush, but depending on the size of the overall session either mission leader is called upon to make an initiative check against the enemy. in other cases we break it down based on 'wing'. when doing initative usually it's straight high number wins. if the player and enemy have the same init roll the player goes first (a facet I take that if I make a large error in the hcp and it's not caught by myself or the players... if it's in the player's favor I'll leave it alone, otherwise I'll correct it). If a vessel is destroyed it goes up in that instant, and again technically they should be able to complete part of their attack, you get back to the fun vs technical and for us it not being worth it.
As for data on ships, weapons etc I have an insane amount of raw data sitting in the hcp db, some that shows up in the regs you've seen and that most that most doesn't. The trick here really is to make sure that things balance out.
I can't say too much more on the guns etc used in the TEOC since alot of the ones I've had a direct design in are fairly different than your normal laser or photon weapon again I'm under the belief alot of the values are shifted in part to try to recognize rate of fire without actually having that coded into the hcp as a seperate function. could be totally wrong but it seems to fit. There really is alot that we'd probably change now if we had the urge to rewrite the hcp, but I've spent so long twisting that program into submission that's not happening. But even discussing this little bit and not wanting to say much so I don't go into 'lecture mode' gets me going into it. oops
Again ultimately the maths come down to trying to find your standard base unit that you want to judge damage/armor and shield ratings against. That was a freaking nightmare to pull off when we decided to run a 'flashback' anniversary deal and setting up the hcp to have wing 1 era ships with their stats equivlantly translated so I could have them in the database without it become a totally seperate db just for that plot arc, but attempts at standards have been covered elsewhere in these forums. I know what I ultimately worked out sorta worked for us and I was happy with the end result.
And while it's a snipet from the old man's ancient fair use agreement this is pretty much all that's required (blasted things so old it's written in the language of when we were still a subset of the Aces). Considering what your project is, which is a more broad based scope than what we still have access to (a pity modius' privateerish mush stuff and everything along with it was lost to the net gods years ago), and that you aren't going to be wholesale dropping in segments of how we do things in saying its yours, all that would be required are the necessary references to our site and founder.. while he's not with us in game anymore it's still his baby. Your objective is limited collaboration and not repackaging us.. heh and as I look through things I really need to see if the old constributor list survived from the last great website meltdown.
anyway this is taken directly from the fairuse.txt of one of the derivations of the regs package, the old one's email address removed, but it really puts things best for us. Please bear in mind that the document was written in this form in 1999
**************
FINAL COMMENTS
**************
I would like to state again, I have no problem with others using these Regs, so long as proper credit and respect are given. And, I, nor should anyone else, have a problem with their being multiple Wing Commander based RPGs on the internet. The net is more than large enough for multiple RPGs to exist. The key is trust.
Additionally, there is no reason why one or more RPGs could not work together. For instance, if you use these Regs, and you have a comment, idea, or suggestion, then please contact me. I have several changes in the works, but, you may be able to offer a completely new idea and/or be able to help develop a new idea for the Regs. And, anyone who helps contribute to these Regs will be given the proper credit that they would be due, as is only fair.
Ultimately in todays current environment, there is no real way to enforce this 'Free Use' document. The free and proper use of these Regs is an act of trust and honor, among RPGs. But, if honor and trust can be applied, we can work together to expand these Regs and make them better for everyone.
And as always, I am open for comments, ideas and suggestions
Mark 'Zylor(Zilor)' Shotwell
****
So to that end, at this time (as the other main coordinator is on vacation and if he actually cares might end up being picky on the wordage of this but I don't wanna wait 2 weeks so). I'd say in the spirit of Z's snippet, the easiest thing for everyone would be where applicable credit us, as you feel, as a collective group
as: The Edge Of Chaos, A Wing Commander RPG, and our website www.wcrpg.com.
If at a later time you feel that you want to do recognition some other way we can discuss it then.
And while I encourage you to find the best system to determine the statistics you want for your weapons and vessels, as right now you'd best know how you're thinking of trying to represent things. There is alot of information that we'll be willing to disclose, but a fair bit we won't since it ties directly into the hcp. And how we do things, especially now in the rpg pretty much takes the established canon and runs for the hills.
Hehe if you managed to join and actually got yourself access to the warbook (getting a character approved and having your forum permissioned changed) it would only give half a picture to most of the vessels even with their stats.. with the methods behind the madness of their creation.. how they're used.. keeping the elusion of 2d combat (3d if you really want to go insane). But it would give a good jumpstart if someone wanted to clone the work, paranoia for years ago and not so much now (but my IT background keeps me paranoid).
Ask if you end up having more questions, by all means ask. I'll do what I can to help.
The hcp (host combat program) in conjunction with an access database handles the 'addons' you'd have with a traditional pnp game, making it so the player only has to determine their action.. and in the case of attacks, their attack mode, shield/weapon power configuration, attack used, unit being targets and then the base roll for the attack.. a dice script (that pops right into mirc ) handles the rand generation for the dice. The host programs the session information into the hcp itself and handles the enemy actions, translating the players actions into the program and then letting it display the result.
as host, gm, dark lord of the hcp.. whatever you want to call it I am responsible for telling the players the situation at the start of each round or when something note worthy happens (more fighters have launched, jumped out, someone's mothership's been destroyed etc).
For simplisty on my part I've found it easier to say that your in range 'x' if you start working out exacting distances, then you have to factor in weapon ranges etc and like the whole refire issue, there is a fine line between what's realistic and what's fun/a pain in the butt. As for time per round we do tend to go with the D&D '6 seconds' per round.. it might be a little longer but the method is still sound.
the hcp itself does not determine who attacks when depending on the situation one side or the other might be given base initiative due to a grossly failed check... or an ambush, but depending on the size of the overall session either mission leader is called upon to make an initiative check against the enemy. in other cases we break it down based on 'wing'. when doing initative usually it's straight high number wins. if the player and enemy have the same init roll the player goes first (a facet I take that if I make a large error in the hcp and it's not caught by myself or the players... if it's in the player's favor I'll leave it alone, otherwise I'll correct it). If a vessel is destroyed it goes up in that instant, and again technically they should be able to complete part of their attack, you get back to the fun vs technical and for us it not being worth it.
As for data on ships, weapons etc I have an insane amount of raw data sitting in the hcp db, some that shows up in the regs you've seen and that most that most doesn't. The trick here really is to make sure that things balance out.
I can't say too much more on the guns etc used in the TEOC since alot of the ones I've had a direct design in are fairly different than your normal laser or photon weapon again I'm under the belief alot of the values are shifted in part to try to recognize rate of fire without actually having that coded into the hcp as a seperate function. could be totally wrong but it seems to fit. There really is alot that we'd probably change now if we had the urge to rewrite the hcp, but I've spent so long twisting that program into submission that's not happening. But even discussing this little bit and not wanting to say much so I don't go into 'lecture mode' gets me going into it. oops
Again ultimately the maths come down to trying to find your standard base unit that you want to judge damage/armor and shield ratings against. That was a freaking nightmare to pull off when we decided to run a 'flashback' anniversary deal and setting up the hcp to have wing 1 era ships with their stats equivlantly translated so I could have them in the database without it become a totally seperate db just for that plot arc, but attempts at standards have been covered elsewhere in these forums. I know what I ultimately worked out sorta worked for us and I was happy with the end result.
And while it's a snipet from the old man's ancient fair use agreement this is pretty much all that's required (blasted things so old it's written in the language of when we were still a subset of the Aces). Considering what your project is, which is a more broad based scope than what we still have access to (a pity modius' privateerish mush stuff and everything along with it was lost to the net gods years ago), and that you aren't going to be wholesale dropping in segments of how we do things in saying its yours, all that would be required are the necessary references to our site and founder.. while he's not with us in game anymore it's still his baby. Your objective is limited collaboration and not repackaging us.. heh and as I look through things I really need to see if the old constributor list survived from the last great website meltdown.
anyway this is taken directly from the fairuse.txt of one of the derivations of the regs package, the old one's email address removed, but it really puts things best for us. Please bear in mind that the document was written in this form in 1999
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FINAL COMMENTS
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I would like to state again, I have no problem with others using these Regs, so long as proper credit and respect are given. And, I, nor should anyone else, have a problem with their being multiple Wing Commander based RPGs on the internet. The net is more than large enough for multiple RPGs to exist. The key is trust.
Additionally, there is no reason why one or more RPGs could not work together. For instance, if you use these Regs, and you have a comment, idea, or suggestion, then please contact me. I have several changes in the works, but, you may be able to offer a completely new idea and/or be able to help develop a new idea for the Regs. And, anyone who helps contribute to these Regs will be given the proper credit that they would be due, as is only fair.
Ultimately in todays current environment, there is no real way to enforce this 'Free Use' document. The free and proper use of these Regs is an act of trust and honor, among RPGs. But, if honor and trust can be applied, we can work together to expand these Regs and make them better for everyone.
And as always, I am open for comments, ideas and suggestions
Mark 'Zylor(Zilor)' Shotwell
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So to that end, at this time (as the other main coordinator is on vacation and if he actually cares might end up being picky on the wordage of this but I don't wanna wait 2 weeks so). I'd say in the spirit of Z's snippet, the easiest thing for everyone would be where applicable credit us, as you feel, as a collective group
as: The Edge Of Chaos, A Wing Commander RPG, and our website www.wcrpg.com.
If at a later time you feel that you want to do recognition some other way we can discuss it then.
And while I encourage you to find the best system to determine the statistics you want for your weapons and vessels, as right now you'd best know how you're thinking of trying to represent things. There is alot of information that we'll be willing to disclose, but a fair bit we won't since it ties directly into the hcp. And how we do things, especially now in the rpg pretty much takes the established canon and runs for the hills.
Hehe if you managed to join and actually got yourself access to the warbook (getting a character approved and having your forum permissioned changed) it would only give half a picture to most of the vessels even with their stats.. with the methods behind the madness of their creation.. how they're used.. keeping the elusion of 2d combat (3d if you really want to go insane). But it would give a good jumpstart if someone wanted to clone the work, paranoia for years ago and not so much now (but my IT background keeps me paranoid).
Ask if you end up having more questions, by all means ask. I'll do what I can to help.
capi3101
Admiral
I was on vacation last week, so I didn't get a lot of work got done. Been taking notes mainly; read through Freedom Flight again and I'm going through End Run now (I'll need to go back through End Run again when I'm done; not only are there good examples of Kilrathi names all throughout that book, but there's some good idea for vehicles and equipment as well). I've also been playing through Armada, Privateer and WC1 again; up to the Rygannon missions in Privateer and the Gimle series in WC1 (didn't kill Bhurak Starkiller, which hacked me off). Some WC Academy, mainly just to fly Ferrets. Mainly just collecting notes and ideas, of course.
Actual work on the game has been going slow, though I did get the section on the Core Mechanic written and the overall introduction is coming along. I was also able to successfully replicate the tables of commodities from Privateer and Righteous Fire on the Wikia page; tables are at least something about Wikia that's the same as ScrewTurn.
I don't have much else in the way of questions right now; I'll let y'all know if I do.
Actual work on the game has been going slow, though I did get the section on the Core Mechanic written and the overall introduction is coming along. I was also able to successfully replicate the tables of commodities from Privateer and Righteous Fire on the Wikia page; tables are at least something about Wikia that's the same as ScrewTurn.
I don't have much else in the way of questions right now; I'll let y'all know if I do.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
If you're interested in Kilrathi names, here's a semi-complete list - https://www.wcnews.com/articles/art17.shtml (I think we made it before the movie and Arena came out, so it doesn't have any of those Kilrathi).
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capi3101
Admiral
I am interested in Kilrathi names; thanks for the link. Are any of them fan-created, to your knowledge? Probably will ignore the movie (though that's pretty much because I don't know where I can find a copy), and I can always dig the ones out of the Arena documentation myself.
What's been the consensus around here on the usage of "nar" in Kilrathi names? As far as I can tell, its either used to identify one's clan or one's planet of origin. Are their any instances where it's used in a Kilrathi name to indicate their profession? If so, that would make it pretty much identical to the old Japanese "no".
"hrai" of course is used to indicate family, though the only time I've ever seen it used as part of a Kilrathi name has been in the novels (Freedom Flight and I think False Colors, and I seem to recall the usage was slightly different between the two).
I don't suppose there are any name lists for any of the other races out there...I mean, Freedom Flight gives four Firekkan names (Rikik, Kree'kai, K'Kai and Laarhi), but to my knowledge that's it.
What's been the consensus around here on the usage of "nar" in Kilrathi names? As far as I can tell, its either used to identify one's clan or one's planet of origin. Are their any instances where it's used in a Kilrathi name to indicate their profession? If so, that would make it pretty much identical to the old Japanese "no".
"hrai" of course is used to indicate family, though the only time I've ever seen it used as part of a Kilrathi name has been in the novels (Freedom Flight and I think False Colors, and I seem to recall the usage was slightly different between the two).
I don't suppose there are any name lists for any of the other races out there...I mean, Freedom Flight gives four Firekkan names (Rikik, Kree'kai, K'Kai and Laarhi), but to my knowledge that's it.