FanFiction

Just FYI, the idea of "cred" and upgrades as originally intended by the devs was to show your own advancing reputation as a pilot, earning better hardware and tech through experience/reputation. You were able to spend the credit you earned on permanent access to better hardware while your level (now hidden on the Cred's Earned page after a match) was to show your overall progress.
"Creds as currency", necessary for funding development, trumped that approach, allowing you to buy new ships and directly affect your pilot credit through Boosts (and artificially increase your level).

Nightwing wrote:Did you not see me mention telepresence?

What I was thinking is this: The pilots aren't actually in the ships. They are actually in a room, hooked up to a VR-type machine where they remotely control the ships.
This would also make a fairly elegant solution for noobs: They just aren't used to controlling the ships. As they get more used to controlling the ships, the noobs get more skilled. The upgrade system could be different levels of 'synergy', where each upgrade represents the pilot getting used to the fighter.

Whaddaya think?

telepresence or VR control sounds more for a cyberpunk game, MB being diesel punk i think its better to have some experimental contraption like an ejector seat or a cockpit but instead of ejecting to the space it teleports the occupant to a safe spot, also the pilot still has to go out with the ship, pilots in MB are like WW2 aces its like space combat but in the 40s, and btw respawn isn't that unreal just imagine one dude who was shot down then he jumps in a parachute and returns walking to his base, im sure the army is going to give him another plane to keep fighting, the teleporting cockpit works as a futuristic parachute and a fast return to base all in one:D

of course above all its your fanfic so you decide

a teleporting cockpit would be the bane of military spending... what commander would tell their subordinate, who just lost an expensive piece of equipment, 'here have another, better luck this time'. lol... no wonder there is a shortage of he3

A very similar concept seemed to work well enough for the Cylons Toasters. v:

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Scar_%28Raider%29

the-anger wrote:a teleporting cockpit would be the bane of military spending... what commander would tell their subordinate, who just lost an expensive piece of equipment, 'here have another, better luck this time'. lol... no wonder there is a shortage of he3

its the same concept of the ejector seat in real life, both save the pilot life only that the later returns him to base too, as for what happens in real life when a pilot gets shot down and survives to return to base that idk, but it was common in WW1 and WW2 to lose planes and get replacements of course those planes didn't cost the same money a modern fighter cost nowadays

as for a ficticious universe they could charge the pilot for every ship they lose like the 6 million dolar man:p or maybe a global goverment doesn't have the same production problems and limits nations alone have today

as for the pirates, well you can hear the pirate commander bitchin all the time about ''how much these fighters cost'' whenever you are shot down, so maybe for them all this he3 business its a mean of survival rather than raw profit

Nightwing wrote:

Ferc Polo wrote:Two down-on-their-luck asteroid miners stumble upon the journal of a legendary war hero who vanished at the height of World War HE-3, and find the terrible secret he took to the grave could shake the very foundations of Interplanetary Governance.

That is a good arc idea, but variations on it have been WAY overdone... Plus, I'd rather have it co-temporal with the MB universe. Of course, the fact that I'm thinking of introducing elements from Star Conflict might make that kinda difficult...
There was a post that suggested Moon Breakers being border skirmishes within a bigger conflict. I was going to run with that. The Star Conflict stuff could be battles against forces that get past the MB skirmishes. Think final line of defense.

Also: In Moon Breakers, when you get shot down, you can respawn. This obviously can't happen in real life, so I've decided to implement a mechanic that will take the place of respawn. Hint: Telepresence.

I was going for a VERY cliche' arc. hahaha.

As for Telepresence, EVE solved this: Clones.

Ferc Polo wrote:As for Telepresence, EVE solved this: Clones.

I don't much like that idea. It isn't based on tech, or anything like that.

My problem with cloning is moral: It is essentially a cheap way to attain immortality, which was never meant for ANY living thing. One side-effect with cloning was demonstrated in the movie Aeon Flux: The cloning process essentially fragmented a person's psyche, resulting in bad hallucinations of past lives and of lives that never were. There was also a problem that stemmed from basic human nature: Greed. The main antagonist in the movie wanted immortality, so he destroyed any research into a cure for the infertility that inflicted the people of the city, even going so far as to order the deaths of any women who had gotten pregnant naturally.

So my question is this: Where does it end?
If anybody can answer that to my very high standards of satisfaction, I will be happy to listen. Until then, I will refuse to use the word cloning unless it's in the presentation of the above argument.

Nightwing wrote:

Ferc Polo wrote:As for Telepresence, EVE solved this: Clones.

I don't much like that idea. It isn't based on tech, or anything like that.

My problem with cloning is moral: It is essentially a cheap way to attain immortality, which was never meant for ANY living thing. One side-effect with cloning was demonstrated in the movie Aeon Flux: The cloning process essentially fragmented a person's psyche, resulting in bad hallucinations of past lives and of lives that never were. There was also a problem that stemmed from basic human nature: Greed. The main antagonist in the movie wanted immortality, so he destroyed any research into a cure for the infertility that inflicted the people of the city, even going so far as to order the deaths of any women who had gotten pregnant naturally.

So my question is this: Where does it end?
If anybody can answer that to my very high standards of satisfaction, I will be happy to listen. Until then, I will refuse to use the word cloning unless it's in the presentation of the above argument.

the kind of cloning youre talking about is not what cloning is.

technically speaking if youre not a single-celled organism there is no chance of things like past-life recollection or any of that pseudo science... all cloning achieves is a second chance for the same (or almost the same) genetic material to be used in construction of a hereditarily near-identical living thing...

immortality though, also not possible through cloning (yet anyway) - the only thing that lives on is your genetic material, assuming it can be perfectly copied in the first place. everything else - personality, disposition, intellect and so on - cannot be transferred via cloning as we know it.

also, the cloning in eve involves a last-minute beam-out of your mind into the new clone body (sort of like 6th day), which would be a form of immortality because the new body need not be exactly identical, merely healthy.

Cloning sounds a little cheap to me, and doesn't really explain the skill progression of the character. the VR thing seems nice though.

I was going to have the VR thing behave like a cross between Code Lyoko and the Matrix.

Lemme explain that: In the Matrix, the people get plugs into their minds that connect their physical bodies to their virtual ones. This makes it so that damage done in the virtual world is transferred to the physical world.
In Code Lyoko, the scanners take a person's body, and turn it into data. In Code Lyoko, being killed in the virtual world doesn't mean death in the physical world. The person is simply booted from the computer, unharmed, but still feeling the pain.

Taking those two ideas, what I'm planning on is this: A pilot will be hooked into a special cabinet, where microfilaments of wire will tap into a person's nervous system. This will override their regular senses, and replace the signals that the pilot would normally get with signals from sensors on the ship. Special cameras will replace normal vision, gyroscopes will replace the balancing mechanisms of the inner ear, stuff like that. Firing weaponry would just be a matter of thinking "Hey, I want to fire a missile!", and a missile is suddenly accelerating away from the ship.

Overall, this would mean that a pilot can fly the ships without having to worry about being killed.
About the only problem that I can see with this kind of system would be distance: Signals can only go so far. At maximum range, the connection would start to break up.
To get an idea on what could happen, take a look at R/C cars: When you're at their maximum range (About 40 feet for high-end cars...), the car will sometimes not respond like you want it to, be it the car going straight when you try to turn, or even stopping when you don't want it to.
This isn't a big problem, however. I imagine signal ranges in lightyears, with relay stations that take the signal and boost it spaced apart at half-LY intervals.

All of this stuff that I just explained will most likely end up in the story.

well... wouldn't it be concievable that carriers are also stations of this sort? bays full of people using such R/C? would explain why a carrier is in every game mode, and why you 'lose' when a carrier is destroyed?

the-anger wrote:well... wouldn't it be concievable that carriers are also stations of this sort? bays full of people using such R/C? would explain why a carrier is in every game mode, and why you 'lose' when a carrier is destroyed?

That was going to be a given. What I was driving at, though, was using the relays in a type of free roam, like I suggested in Anger's Alternative.

Now that I think about it, in Moon Breakers, a team's carrier blowing up only means a loss in carrier assault type matches. In Search and Destroy, as well as CTF, the carrier going boom does not make you lose the match. I remember a recent S&D match, where I was in my Timberwolf, nuking the carrier. When the match ended, I had landed 17 torp hits. As I'm sure you all know, it only takes 15 hits to destroy a carrier.
So yeah, the carrier destruction thing meaning an automatic win wouldn't be that good of an idea. I applaud the fact that you've come up with an idea, though...

Just a little curious on how this thing is going...

Nostromo wrote:Just a little curious on how this thing is going...

I'm currently in the middle of the first chapter. Please, be patient.

Lol, it's cool bro, it's just been a month and haven't heard anything about it, take your time.

Yeah... What with writer's block, life and my internet being cut, I haven't exactly been able to do much...

Hug a pet, works for my writer block most of the time. Also, feel free to ask questions. Everyone loves to help!

Nostromo wrote:Hug a pet, works for my writer block most of the time.

This made me smile. Unfortunately, I don't have a pet...

Also, feel free to ask questions. Everyone loves to help!

Yeah... Right now, I'm having difficulty on coming up with a starting battle.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

BTW: This is what I have come up with so far:

22:01 GST
X: 15,982 Y: 1,347 Z: 8,012
Second planet of the Voltanis Prime system
Alarms blared throughout the ship. The dreadnaught Saladin’s crew is suddenly put on high alert. Interspersed with the klaxons is a computerized message: “Prepare for battle. All pilots proceed to bay 7. Repeat: All pilots to bay 7.”
There was a rush of feet, as the pilots scrambled to follow the orders. They were sprinting from whatever they were doing: Some people left unfinished meals in the mess hall, others were throwing books onto the nearby tables as they ran from the rec room, and still more were wiping sleep from their eyes as they ran from the barracks.

To get an idea of the level of detail I'm going for, GST means "Galactic Standard Time", and the X, Y, and Z coordinates describe the ship's position relative to the galaxy. X describes distance from the galactic core, Y describes where on the galactic disc a point is, relative to a straight line drawn between the galactic core and the hypothetical home planet, while Z is how far above or below the galactic disc a point is.

Names and stuff are just from my imagination, though I would like some suggestions/ideas for names...

I also still need a story title. I don't think that "MoonBreakersFanFic" would go over well... (That's what I have it listed as in Microsoft Word...)

Good start.
Try listening to Iron Maiden's Aces High...

Nightwing wrote:
To get an idea of the level of detail I'm going for, GST means "Galactic Standard Time", and the X, Y, and Z coordinates describe the ship's position relative to the galaxy. X describes distance from the galactic core, Y describes where on the galactic disc a point is, relative to a straight line drawn between the galactic core and the hypothetical home planet, while Z is how far above or below the galactic disc a point is.

Just a minor detail (but it might make the coordinates more realistic), use R for distance from galactic core in place of X, and θ (theta) in place of Y. (Z stays the same.) Standard polar cylindrical coordinate notation.

Jayce wrote:Just a minor detail (but it might make the coordinates more realistic), use R for distance from galactic core in place of X, and θ (theta) in place of Y. (Z stays the same.) Standard polar coordinate notation.

What's the keyboard shortcut to get the Theta symbol? I know that most are alt + num pad type things, but what's the number combination?

run 'charmap.exe'
discover unicode
???
profit

the-anger wrote:run 'charmap.exe'
discover unicode
???
profit

lmao!

Well, I'm a little late to the party, but hey, I got here. I would like to be added at a later date too, seeing as you're almost done/finished the first chapter.

Callsign: Ramba, Brodur
Name: Brodie Giesbrecht
Faction: Gov't
Favorite ship: F-3 Mamba
Personality: This here is a guy crazy enough to fly a Mamba just for passage off of his backwater colony world of a home planet, and then go about using ramming as his tertiary weapon. He's a team player, doesn't like to lone wolf it but he can.
Basic physical description: Male, 5'11", Blue eyes, pale white skin, brown hair
History: Growing up on the backwater colony world of Bison's Hideaway, he was a farmer boy growing up. To escape his boring lifestyle at the age 18, he enlisted in the (*Insert Gov't airforce name here*), and went on to serve for 3 years. He has 12 confirmed kills against pirates in his 3 years of service, making him a Mamba ace.
Anything else: He is one of the only to consider ramming a viable weapon.