Monday, September 22, 2008

A small review

I suppose that now we are designing more ships, it would be appropriate to review a bit of what we have done, what we are working on right now, and what we have planned for the future. This will help keep track of what types of ships we have already covered and which types we seem to be lacking. Our main goal is to get a good selection of ships out so that there is something for everyone, and to make battles more exciting and random. After all, variety is the spice of life! and if 20 people show up for a battle using the same 3 types of ships it can be a bit boring.

Ironclad Set 1(rotating cannon ships)-DONE
The first set of ironclads consisted of 3 ships that had the ability to rotate their cannons, allowing for accurate powerful shots. Two of them being monitor-type ships and a third being a mortar-type. All are available now at SLX and our shop at Caledon Cape Wrath.


Ironclad Set 2(Submarines)-DONE, BUT NEEDS TESTING AND ICS 2.1
This second set has not been released yet. These ships will be equipped with 100/250 HP cores and all three will have the ability to fire torpedo's as well as a unique secondary weapon. One of these subs will be able to place explosives that can be either proximity or depth charge types. Another will have 2 machine guns that can be angled upwards quite a bit, allowing for anti-aircraft fire. The third sub will have a giant dorsal cannon that can fire a heavy cannon round and can have it's power level adjusted for different ranges. We also released a non-combatant submarine, the MSS Auriga already, as it does not need to wait for any combat system updates.

Ironclad Set 3(Casemates)-30% DONE
This third set of ships will be all casemates, meaning their cannons will be fixed and have the ability to ram to some degree. There will be a small, medium and large ship. These will be balanced accordingly, such as giving the smaller ship better speed and turning while giving the heavy ship stronger cannons and ramming. The small casemate MSS Cuthbert is pretty much done, and with all the scriptwork and effects complete all I have to worry about is the primwork for the other two ships.


Ironclad Set 4(Spec-ops)-0% DONE
This fourth set of ships will be very specialized. They will be unlike any of the other ships so far. The first one planned is a Sub-hunter, equipped with machine guns and depth charges. The other 2 we are not 100% certain on, but some ideas of ours included a mother ship that can send out a smaller drone to attack other ships, a slow casemate that can drop mines behind it, a submersible type ship that can grab on to other ships and use a giant drill to inflict damage over time to simulate taking in water, and a ship equipped with a giant flamethrower that would also make use of damage over time.

After those are all done we might work on our flagships, which will be our own personal super ships that will not be for sale. These will mainly be for looks and will not take part in most official battles. We might also add some more to the monitor-type and casemate-type sets if we feel there is not enough variety.

I did not include our earlier works with the historical ironclads because I eventually would like to phase them out. They are old models and not worth the trouble updating every time there is a new system. I may bunch them up into special editions at really cheap prices before the phase out, not too sure. I also may go back and redo them all, but not likely anytime soon. Anyway that is where we are now.

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