one old, long not asked question

Cool! I don't know much about lighting, but Shane, Second Chance, and Cambragol I am sure can toss some ideas in here.

The ship could then be the capsule drive “bubble� in the hyperspace system. That way we only need 5 models to represent any number of ships the player might fly.

Good idea. Actually, we could map from drive type to "bubble". And then throw in some adjustment factors: Fully loaded ship, drops a grade level. Damaged drive also drops (or something).

Having only a few "bubble" grades keeps the simulation workable. Because civilian shipping has only grade 1 or 2 drives, that sets up the Trade routes that become part of the economy later. And leaves some systems poorly connected (meaning good transport pay) for a player with a good drive.

The AI would not handle this well. It could never manage a bank shot. It would not know to dodge nebula. I think the player will need to be alone. The question is: how do we handle the situation where the player is jumping with wingmen? My thoughts are that it forms one "bubble" and we take the worst drive performance for the group. This has two benifits right off, if the player wants to do some raiding by smuggler routes, he takes only fast ships. And second, if he is given an escort mission of a bulky freighter, he will not be able to use scout abilities to dodge all blockades.




-Gtrout

I seem to be liking "last paragraphs" today. But that's some mighty good thinkin', Grandpa.

Oh, and of course I'll help any way I can. But after reading the posts I'm not sure what kind of "lighting ideas" you're looking for.

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I think I know what you can use for lighting. The original EOC used a 'spotlight' to represent the various glows of nebula in systems. This light illuminates planets, ships etc. I ripped all these god awful lights our for epic, but it should work well for this warp simulation. I haven't used lightwave for sometime, (as my copy is...gone..) but I am fairly sure 'spotlight' is the light you want.

Cambragol