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Topic: StarControl: Behind Enemy lines (Read 41189 times)
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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A quick suggestion: Luki, you could add a stylized wind rose in the upper right corner of the map. I think it would look nice, fill that gap of empty space and be somewhat useful. The art style for the rose (regular look, space age, etc) I leave for you to decide.
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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A thing about throwing grenades: are we required to be in a straight line with the target when throwing it (like for everything else) or we can try and lob the thing diagonally?
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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Can we expect to see "the other side of the medal" in some of the upcoming missions after this one we're currently playin' (because I personally hope to see mission 2 and 3 and 4 and...  )? What I mean is - can we (all players, current and future) hope to play as Hierarchy Spooks, not just Allied ones?
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Dabir
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The Hierachy doesn't seem much like the sort of organisation to employ spooks to me. Sure, Androsynth and Ilwrath can get along well as we've seen, and Umgah are just friendly to everyone until they splice a few extra limbs on, but imagine a VUX and a Spathi meeting for the first time.
The various thralls were forced together by the simple fact that they all got their asses kicked (except the Mycon, obviously). They've got to be resenting that to some degree. With the supervision of a Lord they can work together in relative peace, but as an isolated group with no up-to-date contact with the Hierachy? They might turn traitor, attack each other, fail simply because they are unwilling to function as a unit... the Alliance doesn't have this problem as if they weren't friendly with each other already (creepiness aside) they'd have stayed at each others throats until they were overwhelmed.
The Ur-Quan also aren't much for sneaky stuff. Tactics sure, striking at the weak points fine, but placing a group of untrustworthy people who hate their masters into unfamiliar territory filled, let's not forget, with psychics? That just smacks of stupid. Like trying to get a VUX commando to disable a Syreen's psychic amplifiers on his own. Oh, and the ships have to dock to transfer. That stupid. The only way a commando operation could work for the Hierachy is if a Quan personally accompanied the team at all times, and they hang from the goddamn ceiling! Also even with a Quan watching there's a very real risk of backstabbing, and how would it carry its talking pet without it possibly being stolen if its master was killed?
Bottom line, the Hierachy isn't designed to have spies, so it's a good thing that their military is so strong. The Dreadnought is a prime example of their mindset - don't dodge around and be tricky, just shoot things with a big gun.
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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You may be right, but from a tactical standpoint it sounds reasnoable that the Hierarchy would at least try to counter Alliances spies to a certain degree. Because if they would leave them all to roam their territory unchecked that all powerful military ceases to be useful do to one simple fact - sabotage. What's the use of a Dreadnaught if it explodes in your starbase when you press "ignite thrusters" button? If that was the case, Alliance would beat the cr** out of Ur-Quan forces even before they could get deep into the alliance space; just deploy few thousand spook teams far into the enemy's area of control and they can start collecting their fleets debris all over the TrueSpace  even if they would try to counter this with higher alert levels, more guards, more defensive systems and such, it would eventually prove fruitless and quite expensive, because - any lock can be opened/computer hacked/data or item stolen/leader assassinated given time and will to perform such an act. Even the VUX could start closing their eye in the presence of an Andro or Umgah and cooperate if that would make their trade routes/facilities safe once again. So, I'm prone to believe that even some spy team made by force (and let us not forget that FORCE is the base of all relations between the slave races and the UQ) is better than none - for the greater and common good of all Hierarchy races.
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I even like that idea of forced cooperation, reminds me much of the "Munchkin" card game; while the team pushes to their mission goal you can trust no one, every step that you make is a possible opportunity that someone can abuse for their own gain, backstabbing and plotting is common as is cooperation in Alliance...I think that the game would be hellowa lot different if (role) played from this angle, and would offer tons and tons of fun and funny situations I would really like to see this one happen 
EDIT: I'm just curious: what program have you and Dabir used when creating unit sprites? I need sprites for a project I'm developing and trying to put under way, but I know next to nothing about "sprite art" (not even sure that this is the name they use for it ), yet would very much like to try it out and give it a shot.
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« Last Edit: February 09, 2009, 01:24:03 pm by Son_of_Antares »
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Dabir
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I use MSPaint for spriting - whilst a lot of people use Photoshop, you don't need anything especially powerful. Photoshop's really for if you want resizing that doesn't look like ass.
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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A thing about smoke and char sprites in smoke: you could at least put some sort of markers on the cloud (red letter for example; S - Sukuzu, W - Wubula etc.) so we don't have to backtrack to previous map updates to pinpoint our exact location.
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