Planets as targets?

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I wonder if firing on an in-game planet would be possible for cryptic, like for some future FE or something?

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Sure, we could set something like that up. But it would have to be a special map. And really, you'd be targetting an invisible critter that we set at the point on the surface that you should be firing at.

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And then later on an update to critter AIs causes an unexpected side-effect... so people who run the mission and start firing on the planet sit in amazement as the planet runs away. :D

[Archived Post]

And then later on an update to critter AIs causes an unexpected side-effect... so people who run the mission and start firing on the planet sit in amazement as the planet runs away. :D

Or Tricobalt Knocks the planet out of targeting distance.

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And then later on an update to critter AIs causes an unexpected side-effect... so people who run the mission and start firing on the planet sit in amazement as the planet runs away. :D

Worse than that, it might Fight Back (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Mogo_%28New_Earth%29).

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And then later on an update to critter AIs causes an unexpected side-effect... so people who run the mission and start firing on the planet sit in amazement as the planet runs away. :D

Or even worse, the planet rushes your ship and one-shots you with a giant bat'leth.

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Or the tactical cube's invisible torpedoes in Elite Stf's

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Seriously though, I'd love to see a "bombard planet" mission for the Klingons. If there wasn't one already, I don't remember.

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As much as the thought of turning a planet into a wasteland of smoldering buildings and corpses appeals to me, what about the loot... err their valuable stuff. You´ll destroy it all. :eek::D:p

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It could certainly make the Dilithium Mining mission more enjoyable - fly your ship over to the asteroid and bombard it into crystals. Hoover it up. Profit! :p

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And then later on an update to critter AIs causes an unexpected side-effect... so people who run the mission and start firing on the planet sit in amazement as the planet runs away. :D
The worst that would happen is the invisible target starts moving away from the planet, as planets and moons are part of the static map geometry, to my knowledge. The only exceptions are the moons on Bajor Ground, which do actually move (nice touch, by the way).

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I had a pretty neat orbital bombardment mechanic figured out in the Foundry. Unfortunately, not being able to purchase Foundry slots means nobody can see it. Thanks Cryptic.

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Targeting anomalies would help inship maneouvers.

>Sorry my english

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Sure, we could set something like that up. But it would have to be a special map. And really, you'd be targetting an invisible critter that we set at the point on the surface that you should be firing at.

Already happened in the Romulan FE, when we fire on the Iconian asteroid gate. And also in the Breen series when we fire on the asteroid to get the map fragment.

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Already happened in the Romulan FE, when we fire on the Iconian asteroid gate. And also in the Breen series when we fire on the asteroid to get the map fragment.

Somehow I remember a Romulan FE having a planet-explosion at the end, was this removed at a later date? Or am I thinking of the wrong mission? Is there a mission with a planet-explosion you have to get away from? Perhaps I'm just going crazy here, but I swear there was a mission like this.

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Already happened in the Romulan FE, when we fire on the Iconian asteroid gate. And also in the Breen series when we fire on the asteroid to get the map fragment.

At the beginning the targets where visible crash test dummies! :)

Somehow I remember a Romulan FE having a planet-explosion at the end, was this removed at a later date? Or am I thinking of the wrong mission? Is there a mission with a planet-explosion you have to get away from? Perhaps I'm just going crazy here, but I swear there was a mission like this.

You might think of Doomsday where a planet/moon was destroyed by the DD.

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The biggest problem with this is the ridiculous scale of planets. We have a 10km phaser/torpedo range and yet the planets are scaled as if we're thousands of miles away from them when we're scraping the white out zone.

I've always wanted the planets to be massive (possibly animated) matte painting outside of the zone boundary. Something we couldn't mess about and try to dive into the atmosphere unless we were on some sort of shuttle mission. (Maybe once we can launch from our ship inside of an instanced mission.)

I imagined that instance maps with planets would be like huge treadmills. Fly in one direction and you can see the matte painting rotate in one direction, fly in the other and it rotates opposite. As you reach one edge or another, your ship stops and the rest of the map moves around you; rubble or enemy ships from beyond the zone border are drawn toward you, stationary on the treadmill. Once you stop to fight, the treadmill stops and you resume moving within the zone instead of vice versa. The zone would have to be long enough to where players could go so far away as to de-spawn from each others' view. That way if they are headed in opposite directions, or if one is stationary and the other is not, the zone would intelligently move them apart and perhaps intelligently move scenery/enemies toward them.

Obviously it's a bit late for something like that that should have been done in initial development to help further immersion; so I suppose that train has sailed. :3

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In a foundry mission I made, that I really should go back and clean up I think I left it in a horrible mess, I did force the player, for story reasons, to open fire on the surface of a planet, resulting in an explosion effect about the surface activating. Never could get it all to line up right though, and the effect half the time wouldn't activate. And there was never an 'open fire on target' animation... but if something like this could be implemented by Cryptic, I'd love to see it added to the foundry, so I could remaster that mission a bit.

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it would also be nice if star bases weren't just objects on maps, that they were something targetable and they had weapons and abilities too like ships, they just wouldn't move

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The biggest problem with this is the ridiculous scale of planets. We have a 10km phaser/torpedo range and yet the planets are scaled as if we're thousands of miles away from them when we're scraping the white out zone.

I've always wanted the planets to be massive (possibly animated) matte painting outside of the zone boundary. Something we couldn't mess about and try to dive into the atmosphere unless we were on some sort of shuttle mission. (Maybe once we can launch from our ship inside of an instanced mission.)

I imagined that instance maps with planets would be like huge treadmills. Fly in one direction and you can see the matte painting rotate in one direction, fly in the other and it rotates opposite. As you reach one edge or another, your ship stops and the rest of the map moves around you; rubble or enemy ships from beyond the zone border are drawn toward you, stationary on the treadmill. Once you stop to fight, the treadmill stops and you resume moving within the zone instead of vice versa. The zone would have to be long enough to where players could go so far away as to de-spawn from each others' view. That way if they are headed in opposite directions, or if one is stationary and the other is not, the zone would intelligently move them apart and perhaps intelligently move scenery/enemies toward them.

Obviously it's a bit late for something like that that should have been done in initial development to help further immersion; so I suppose that train has sailed. :3

Maybe Cryptic can integrate this tech into their engine at some point in the future :)
Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eREddMjt4&feature=player_embedded&fmt=22)
Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3muhlQYFgLE&feature=related&fmt=22)

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If this is implemented, it should be limited to firing on a planet to destroy things on the planet -- not the planet itself.

NO DEATH STAR MECHANICS IN STAR TREK PLEASE. We already have J J Abram's best (and very poor, I might add) attempt to change Star Trek into Star Wars.

:)

P.S. The Crystalline Entity should be able to destroy the surface of planets. We could have a mission to save a planet from its destruction or to rescue survivors -- like in the Next Gen series. Maybe there is already something like this. I haven't looked through all the existing episodes or system patrols yet.

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NO DEATH STAR MECHANICS IN STAR TREK PLEASE.Sorry, too late. Star Trek had the Doomsday Weapon before Star Wars was even a gleam in Georges eye.

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imo, Planets should have a secondary invisible sphere model centered on the planet model, but twice as large to give the illusion of size when it comes to planets.

Truth is that Earth would fill they screen if you were floating outside of ESD, but they are limited by what they can do with their engine.

Cosmetics are the last thing they should be focusing on right now though.

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Snopes rates this a true, but vastly exaggerated story....

http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/kangaroo.asp