Progress.... | Star Frontiers

There has been much silence on this project and it has taken on a new direction. The game has been made; however, it does still have non-functional parts and a few that are having a hard time dealing with SF rules on construction, everyone knows what that is, the MHS. The basic physics was being a pain with the MHS as the means of defining the hull for the equipment installed onto the ships. There has been changes to the sequence of events such as the turns and the ten minute turn had to go, it is now real-time. The MHS was giving everyone a headache, go figure, so, it has been changed to be more realistic and keeping with the SF flavor. The MHS is now the symbolic representation of the mass and limitations to the number of systems the ships can carry. Missles did not really have a MHS, they do now for the sake of the symbolic mass disrobutions. The seeker is 1 MHS. There are two torpedoes in a MHS. the rocket battery a assault rock has 4 per MHS. The ICM has 8 per MHS, these are based on the seeker's cubic meters of 40 then the assumed mass of them when you compare them to other weapons. This system worked like a charm but some of the ships had to get revamped due to this change but not much. Furthermore, with the use of the MHS more as a mass, the engines to HS works much batter, better than we expected. I know your question about the MHS is going to be "Why are you keeping the MHS when it is giving so much grief?" Well, it is part of the system and keeps the flavor of SF; however, this will go the way of the Dodo and have a mass system instead of the MHS headache. More weapons had to be changed to make the game less boring and leave one feel let down. The seeker has had the range of 36 hexes already and in the game has two modes, mine and missile. The seeker missile rack has been changed to also incorporate a magezine that carries 4 seekers internally but this does not shed the mas of the seekers. The torpedoe is no longer limited to 4 hexes, it now has an effective range of 12 but can go 16 with only 1d10 damage. After 4 hexes, it begins to lose its punch at the rate of 1d10 per 4 hexes. it is done at 20 hexes. The torpedoe launcher has a magezine that carries 8 torpedoes this does not shed the mass of the torpedoe. The assault rocket has a range of 8 but this does not mean it will hit, it is still just a propelled projectile with a warhead. The assault rocket launcher has a magezine that carrie 4. Again, this does not give any free space, the mass is still accounted for it the hull. The ICm has a magezine that carries 24 but the mass is still not included in this, either. The energy weapons have a charge time the MHS was used for the time in seconds just to fill in the gap for now but it seems to work good. There is a slew speed on the turrets that is incorporated into the game and seems to work well so far in the playtesting. The slew allows for laser batteries to be the only energy weapon to target fighters and missiles. There is nothing to stop oppurnity shots with other weapons on incoming missiles. Defenses are being left alone except for the MHS being used as a mass symbol. Hull points have a MHS too to reflect the mass that it has but currently the default hulls get their HP for free but more cost 1 MHS per 5 HP extra. The loss of ADF/MR still gives 5 HP, right now. New hull armor is going to be used in the game, so far, only a composite armor has been implimented to give 10 HP per MHS. Now the hard part and the part that will kill the MHS completely, the engine to hull size. OMG, the engines have no base that I can find to start from in the book. For a good example, look at the HS 19 compared to the HS 20, that just ain't right. Several ideas have been tried and non have made a good base to start from, so, there might be a new system implimented to take care of this engine delima. The game has been reduced to 2D instead of 3D due to the fact that there are only 5 ships in 3D. The Assault Scout, Frigate, Destroyer, Carrier, Battleship, and the Ag Ship just for fun but not used except as decor in the scenes. All the ships are UPF designs, no Sather ships but the destroyer, ok, there is 7 total. All the other are conic shapes denoted by there color for UPF blue and Sather red. Spacestations are just big donuts nothing to the sizes except by consulting the station roster in game. The 2D uses the ship counter from the game board. Something that is new, is how the sensors work. Once you scan a ship, it's signiture is logged for future references, for other uses as well but it is not implimented due to other problems. The rest is just pounding out the kinks that the rules have tons of and some bugs that pop up now and then. The ships turning is in 60 degree incrememnts left over from a turn based version. The AI works descent but needs to get some attention. The fleet AIs target the same ship, must be an error in there somewhere. I think I missed something in the AI code. The networking part works on my lan but not over the internet, it has something to do with the port forwarding. I am not going to worry about the port forwarding until the game gets to be a better play and more of the issues resolved. These are just some of the things done and being done. We haven't been working on it for every waking moment due to jobs, school, and real life. Just to let you know, it is being worked on with its progress on where it is at for now.

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