Stellar_Magic

I recently aquired a program called Dark Basic which enables a person with even a meager amount of programming experience to build their own large scale game. So, I've decided to start on a rather large project, a brand new Star Wars: Flight Simulation game. I'll need some help though. Anyone willing to contribute models in 3DS and X? Formats will be welcome. I'm hoping that I'll be able to create a game that will have the following features... A Dynamic Campaign A Canon Damage System A Realistic controls (Pitch and roll will no longer be reversed.) A "Realistic" Physcis model (In Star Wars none of the space craft act correctly to space flight, we'll ignore this obvious lack of realism and go with the cannon.) The ability to fly in both planetary atmosphere and space in a single mission. So whose up for the challenge, the programming seems relatively simple for a computer game from what I've been experimenting with. Who is up for the challenge.

Corran winced as his X-wing was buffeted by a flak burst from below. His shields held as he banked away from the stream of weapons fire and spared a glance down. Below him the brilliant gold and red flash of weapons fire lit up the noman's land now closing in on the base. Personnel and droids from both sides were cut down in that deadly space. Behind the base parts of the ground opened up to reveal hangers below and to give the transports hidden deep within their escape route. The Rapora were not about to let that happen. Already a number of Raporan Walkers were moving in toward the base, their brilliant gold plasma cannons ripping apart weapons empacements and firing into the bunkers of the defenders opening up points of entry for the sith and rapora. As a Gallofree Yards Medium Transport rocketed out of the hanger Corran keyed his comm, "Transport FTS-985, your vector is clear, I'll cover you." * * * Kyp dove back from the firing slit before him as a red blaster bolt slipped in and flashed across his hand. He dropped the blaster and hissed as the slight burn flashed through his nerves. What made it worse was that it had been his own shot, ricocheted by a Sith Warrior. Suddenly down the bunker the walls blew open and stormtroopers were cut down by concentrated enemy fire. A small squad of Raporan infantry poured out of the gap and into the hall. Their lightsabers humming with malice. Ulan stepped into the hall his lightsaber lit, "All troops fall back!" Kyp nodded to the troops near him, "You heard him, fall back. Ulan, go with them. I'll slow them down!" * * * For Grand Admiral Thrawn, suddenly everything went wrong. Directly behind his force the Raporan and Aklasp forces that had appeared to have withdrawn returned. Their opening volley struck the rearmost ships in his formation, the Carriers, but their presence ensured further losses to come.

Unfortunately, no. We can't add more slots for minor or major characters, the number of slots is hardcoded in the game and isn't editable without the sourcecode which Lucasarts has refused to release.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/StellarMagic01/Jadejpg.jpg Ask and you shall recieve. Thanks for the image guys, she looks good converted to rebellion's pallet. Of course I'll have to make my smaller images with other Mara picks at a different angle just to keep it from getting repeditive.

It's pretty good nonetheless, Zahn did a good job at trying to bridge the gap and give an insight into the way both Mara and Luke thought. Still I think we were a bit disappointed because it didn't fit in with some of the other works. We didn't know who the enemy were for an enormous amount of time and Zahn restricted the narration more then usual. It reads more like a mystery then a Star Wars novel in some respects.

Personally I think the worst Star Wars Novel of all Time was The Truce at Bakura. It's an underwritten, dabbling piece of junk, I wrote better when I was sixteen then that person! I think you're giving the Black Fleet Crisis a somewhat undeserved smear, as far as writting quality its pretty good but stylistically it isn't Star Wars. The thing reads like a Tom Clancy novel with tons of plots, little character development and very little direct action in combat by the characters themselves.

Mines hmm... Star Wars Stellar begins to remember some horrifying missions from the old X-wing series of computer games. Minefields, tones of minefields. There is nothing scarier for an old hand ace pilot then the XWA mission with the homing mines... In that series there were lots of different types of mines... So here's a list of mines for EAW: SPACE BASED MINES: Proxemity Mines Homing Mines Laser Armed Mines Ion Armed Mines Laser Armed Mines with deadman's missile LAND BASED MINES: Plasma Mines (Napalm like) Gas Mines Personnel Mines Gravitic Mines (Detonated by Repulsorlifts) Pressure Mines (Detonated by heavy weight, kills walkers and tanks) Automated Defense Turrets

I think it's a great BETA for a game. I just now got it out of boredom. There's lots of things that need improved and the classes don't seem to work for me. Oh well, I think I'll start hunting for some mods...

A week.

Commander Veran Krummel ran his hand through his hair and looked down at his displays. The Jedi, by luck or the force had managed to bring another of their number to the battlefield. Even now a rescue attempt was clearly underway. With a sigh Krummel turned to glance out at space, "Launch a squadron of Morningstars, and ready the Diagonas for launch. Order the Morningstars to destroy the Jedi starfighter docked with the Freighter." "Yes sir," The droid answered. Outside twelve of the enormous Morningstar type starfighters launched from the hanger and maneuvered to engage. They locked on with their concussion missile launchers and fired, scraping the Jedi starfighter from the side of the freighter and opening the cooridor below to space. Suddenly another ship dropped out of hyperspace, the massive and distinctive form of a Venerator (sp?) class Star Destroyer.

Bad news guys, tomorrow I'm leaving for New Mexico. Remember Mad the battle with Kaja is supposed to be a feint, don't bring in your heavy stuff yet.

The conclusionary part of Shattered Space is up. Next in the series will be The White Admiral. As you can guess I'm switching point of views to that of the Imperials for the next couple installements. We'll get back to the Voyager and Skywalkers after I introduce some of the other factions that got pulled through.

Star Trek vs. Star Wars: Shattered Space Part IV The Borg Detector’s glittering grey hull flashed as a barrage of weapons fire slashed into its side. Onboard half of the crew was already dead; the remainder struggled on, headless of their destruction. Outside the chase and capture of the Federation Shuttle had failed, and a battle which the collective had not intended had begun. A battle that would give the collective valuable information, and information was what won wars. The Borg fought on, blazing at the attacking fighters and starships with manic determination. The Voyager had taken a beam to its nose and rolled away from the engagement blazing laser fire at the blocky ship which was the Borg Detector. Then an enormous ship’s shadow fell over the combatants. As the enormous bumpy hull of the vessel cruised overhead the turbolaser batteries of the vessel rotated toward its target. On the bridge of the Voyager Janeway watched the enormous vessel maneuvering toward the Detector. “Unknown configuration, wait its firing on the Borg ship!” Ensign Kim looked up his eyes wide as he watched the Borg Detector wither from the barrage of weapons fire. Suddenly in a green tinted explosion the ship detonated. He looked at Captain Janeway, “Borg Detector destroyed.” ”We’re being hailed,” Commander Tuvok said from his station. “On screen,” Captain Janeway answered. The screen shifted to the inside of a cream colored bridge. Dozens of controls and panels were visible in the image but only a few crewmen, some of which looked human. In the center was a humanoid that was obviously amphibian. It had reddish brown skin and gold fish like yes that were mounted on the sides of its skull and had to swivel forward to focus on Janeway’s image, “I am Captain Loran Remora of the New Republic Warship Remember Yavin IV.” * * * Luke looked up through the top of his canopy at the enormous MC 80a cruiser that hung above him. Slowly he turned to Artoo, “Artoo give me all the files you have on the MC80a Remember Yavin IV.” The screen in front of him lit up and script sped across it. Luke slowly began to read, “MC80a Remember Yavin IV designation MC-80A4176. Ship constructed at the Mon Calamari Shipyards eight years after Endor. She was commanded by Commander Hiram Gurath, second in command Captain Loran Remora. The ship served with distinction during the war against the cloned emperor, continued service until destroyed over Doornik 319 during the Yevethan Crisis.” Luke transmitted to the data to Mara. “Destroyed?” Mara asked across the comm. Luke could feel the surprise ripple from her as she spoke. * * * Captain Janeway stood in the center of the bridge, “I’m Captain Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager.” “Captain, I trust you have no hostile intent, unlike that vessel,” The Calamari captain said across the link. “You were attacked as well?” Janeway asked. “Yes, one of our task force’s escorting gunships was attacked by this vessel and reported its exit vector. We came after it hoping to find out more. I’ve had no contact with my superiors and have been forced to assume command of our task force. We’ve got ships prowling space looking for more information,” Loran answered. He seemed to sag in his chair, “We’ve put out a series of calls through all know channels, and we haven’t been able to contact anyone, until now.” He turned to his sensor officer, “Have you finished the sensor sweep?” “Yes, Captain there is nothing else out there.” The Mon Calamari officer turned back to the screen, “I see that there is a pair of X-wings with you, though I’m not familiar with the design of one of them.” Janeway nodded slowly, “Yes, Master Skywalker and his wife are piloting them.” Captain Janeway stopped when she saw the Calamari’s eyes widen. “Did you say Skywalker’s wife?” * * * “Remember we can’t tell them anything,” Luke said slowly across the communications. Slowly he turned to glance at Mara’s X-wing as it slid past him. Across the channel Luke could hear Mara’s sigh, “How are we going to explain our marriage? I mean what if they don’t know what’s happened?” She paused and Luke felt a wave of frustration come off of her presence in the force, “I just finished a sensor scan and the Cruiser lacks the upgrades that we instituted after the Clone emperor’s appearance. There isn’t enough old battle scoring for the ship to be very old.” Luke was startled when a voice came across the speaker of the X-wing, “X-wings, Captain Remora would like to invite you to land in our hanger, we’d like to meet you.” “Negative Yavin IV, we’d like to get back into our ship, perhaps another time,” Luke answered slowly as he turned his craft toward the Jade Scimitar. “X-wings, Captain Remora must insist,” Luke felt his hairs stand on end. Slowly he looked at the Mon Calamari cruiser hanging above him. He saw that a pair of quad laser batteries had turned to face him. The targeting warning light suddenly began to blink. “Yavin are you going to fire on us?” Mara asked slowly across the radio. “Negative X-wings, unless you refuse again,” The gravely sounding Mon Calamari voice answered. “You’d shoot a longtime hero of the Rebellion?” Luke asked across the comm. The voice on the other end of the transmission seemed slightly shaken, “We have no reason to believe you are who you say unless you come aboard.” “Alright Yavin, we’ll play your game,” Mara said with a sigh. Slowly she turned the X-wing toward the cruiser. * * * Luke popped the hatch of his snubfighter and climbed down the ladder and walked into a wall of security personnel with their blasters drawn. Slowly he held up his hands, “What don’t recognize me?” The soldiers tentatively lowered their weapons. Luke sighed as Mara walked over from her X-wing. A couple of the soldiers snapped their rifles back up when they saw her, most just stood there. “Well I’ll be damned,” A Mon Calamari officer slipped through the crowd and stepped forward, “Master Skywalker, you look a lot older then I thought you would.” “That’s because he is,” Mara said slowly. She sighed, “Can you take us to a conference room. We’ll explain it all to you.” “This way,” The captain answered and slowly led them through the doors and down a hall. After a few minutes they were alone in a conference room. There the Captain turned on them, “So Janeway said you’re married?” Luke held up his hand, “Hold on let me explain.” ”Alright, I suppose I’ve gotten ahead of something, go ahead,” Loran replied. He heaved a sigh as he dropped into a command chair. Luke heaved a sigh he knew this was going to be hard to explain, “Captain, you’ve noticed that there isn’t any communications available across the holo net.” The Captain nodded and Luke continued, “We believe that some form of temporal and dimensional distortion has occurred. You see…” Luke sighed trying to assemble his thoughts. “What I think has happened here is… if you can imagine all the major events of the last three decades occurring at the same time. Our time line has been compressed into now. You see, me and Mara got married over a decade ago. But for you it hasn’t happened yet,” Luke said slowly trying to make him understand. “But that doesn’t explain these strange ships, the Federation, these…” Captain Remora laughed to himself, “Unless they’re from the future.” “You explain it then, we’re not scientists,” Mara spat. “So you don’t know exactly what has happened?” “I don’t, no one does. I know that this ship was destroyed several years ago,” Luke felt anger swell up within him for revealing that bit of information. Then a wave of shock blazed the officer across the table. “You shouldn’t have told him,” Mara said grimly. ”What happened,” Captain Remora asked quietly. Luke sighed, “Years from your time there was a conflict between the New Republic and the Yevetha, a race that lived in the Koornacht cluster. Your ship was destroyed in battle during the conflict.” “I see,” The Captain lowered his gaze slightly then shrugged, “Well, there is no telling what is going to happen now.” Mara sighed and leaned over the table, “Captain, when did you first loose contact with your superiors?” “About two days,” Captain Remora answered. “That’s about the same time we ran into the Voyager,” Luke said quietly. Mara frowned, “Whatever happened it must have happened all at once.” “The loss of communication isn’t all. We were in the Dresnak system and the star suddenly moved about two thousand kilometers and changed its spectral class.” Captain Remora shook his head, “I’m no Astrophysicist but that’s impossible, isn’t it?” He shuddered, “That star wasn’t alone either, it’s been touch and go navigating. All our data seems to be patch worked together. Some stars have moved and others haven’t.” “We noticed the same thing,” Luke said slowly. He frowned, “With the Borg and whatever else out there it would probably be best if we stuck together. I’ve heard the Borg have ships much larger then that thing we just destroyed.” Captain Remora nodded, “You’re probably right.” He glanced over at the comm. Then he sighed before keying it, “Lieutenant Aklar, could you get me the captain of the Voyager.” * * * The Voyager dropped out of warp followed seconds later by an entire task force of New Republic Vessels. There were three Corellian Gunships, six Gallofree Yards Medium Transports, a Nebulon B Frigate, a Quasar Fire Carrier, and the enormous form of the Mc80a Class Cruiser Yavin IV. Along the sides of the ship and before it swarmed flights of New Republic starfighters and hiding in the shadow of the larger ships was the Jade Scimitar. Up ahead the solar system of the Alegari system as the New Republic computers had called it blazed into existence. Their star charts, inaccurate though they are were quickly becoming a boon for the Voyager. Already, after just a few days of cooperative exploration a pattern and rhythm to their actions had settled in. The Voyager would enter a system on its warp drives and quickly confirm that the area was clear of gravity wells, and then the task force would follow. This had made the Voyager an important part of the group, and had already saved them from a number of jumps that would have come to a violent end for the fleet. Now the Voyager witnessed the violent birth of a world. A planet, floated through the void, it looked whole in the sulfurous yellow light of its star, but as it turned a feature that was beyond comprehension appeared. A brilliant line split the world in two. One half was an icy shell, the other a tropical heaven. The planet seemed to have been sliced in two, and now as Captain Janeway watched on the bridge, it began to disintegrate. Lava boiled out from the divide squirting at stunning speed to the edge of space before descending back to the solid surface of the world. Janeway turned to commander Tuvok, “Whats happening?” “I do not know captain,” The dark skinned Vulcan speed through a number of commands, “Our sensors are detecting two separate electromagnetic poles, two separate climate patterns, and two separate internal structures.” He glanced up at the screen, “The feature which is clearly visible is the divide between these elements. It seems… No, that is not logical.” Janeway frowned, “Like what commander?” “Like two halves of two planets were forced together.” He frowned as he looked back to the sensors, “The planet is attempting to heal itself it seems. I have never seen anything with which to compare it.” * * * Onboard the Jade Scimitar Luke, Mara, and Ben starred out at the planet before them, awe struck. Through the force Luke and Mara could sense the consternation and shock from their companions. The also felt the shock from each other. Luke felt his mouth go dry, “By the force. What could have done this?” “I have a bad feeling about this,” Mara said quietly. Suddenly, the world flared and the cold face shattered sending a cascade of fragments twirling through the void. In that moment they both knew that what had happened was far greater then either had conceived, and far more frightening.

I'm betting we'll get the Venerator Class Star Destroyer for sure. It'll probably be the heaviest ship you start out with.

Well I'd go with these 7: 2,4,5,8,9,11,12 9 mostly because it'll give them a chance to stroke their egos

Um, wouldn't you be in control fo the units on the mission and therefore be able to figure out soem way for them to escape the trap?

Save / Eliminate the Defector. An Imperial officer with vital intelligence of Imperial movements is fleeing from his post. Attempt to rescue him from the clutches of the Imperial Fleet.

Well its a faction's craft (Free World Alliance). The universe itself is somewhat hard to explain... The Factions: The Free World Alliance: Founded in 2052 after an alien invasion of earth, the Free World Alliance is an evolution of the United Nations which has grown to encompass all of earth and its colonies in other worlds. The entire population of the Alliance is human. The Rotef Council: A loose band of system states led by energy beings known as the Rotef or Rotere. In an ancient war the Rotef were stripped of the ability to sustain themselves, in order to survive they must take a human being as a host. A Rotef can live for an indefinite period of time so long as there are hosts available. There are several miniature factions within the Rotere. The Free World Alliance knows very little about the Rotef or their worlds. In Free World Alliance parlance those worlds known to be hostile are called Dark Worlds, all of these worlds are members of the Rotef Council. The Sunni Federation: (No these aren't muslims) Much like the Rotef the Sunni are energy beings that require the host to survive. In fact they were the other side in that war. While the Rotef don't value human life the Sunni do and have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts, new sunni are born in tandem with their hosts. The hosts and Sunni are in many ways the same person and are nearly impossible to seperate. The Free World Alliance does not know of the existance of this faction or of the next one. The Grethans: They began in a lab. A race of beings engineered by the Sunni to act as temporary hosts before communications with humanity. By accident the majority of Grethans developed sentience and the Sunni felt compelled to set them free. These aliens are what pop culture calls the Grey aliens if you get my drift.

Well its similar but not the same. There are two laser hardpoints next to the wingroots and a single laser on a rotating rear turret. The craft also features a pair of canards on the front fuselage. As part of the wing root is a missile launching system and just above these you can see the two braking thrusters. It has an Electromagnetic shield, which unfortunatley is completely useless against kinetic weapons.

Nah, Elephents are way to overpowered in the game. I mean cave men killed mamoths with a couple of thrown spears, hows a phalanx going to perform? I modded mine so they're less difficult to eliminate. I've found its much more effective to use massed cavalry then to use elephants.

For those of you who don't know (Most everyone but Cain) I'm a budding writer and I'm working on a series novel and short story series entitled Stellar Magic. The first book will probably be finished (Ready to be sent to a Publisher) by the end of the month. I'll also have hoped to have finished a number of short stories dealing with elements of the universe in which the books are in. This forum is dedicated to commenting on and posting the conceptual art I've created for ships, characters, and worlds that will exist in this universe. So far this is the only one I've got completely finished and on my hard drive: Enjoy. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/StellarMagic01/FlashClassStarfighters.jpg The Free World Alliance Flash class starfighter.

Strange, this can't be a complete list. There is a lot of equipment shown in Episode III thats missing, not to mention the Z-95 (Which along with the Y-wing should be the Rebels only fighters at game start), AT-PT, Super Star Destroyer, Dreadnaughts, who knows what else. Of course if they aren't in there we could probably mod them in.

We've seen in some of the images that there will be space platforms, will fighters be able to dock with them (To make repairs or recieve replacements)? What about capital ships? Cain: This is something of an aside but what I really wish we could do would be bring ships from orbit into the atmosphere. Supposably the Victory Class could do that, not to mention all the different imperial/old republic ships we've seen enter the atmosphere. That would definitely blur the line between the space battle and the ground one.

Better yet would be to make it so that there are multiple planets in the Mon Calamari System. I'd say the same could go for Bilbringi, Kuat, Fondor, or any number of other places. Maybe you could make it so that instead of building ships when you didn't own those locations you could purchase them from those systems (For a much higher cost). Sort of like you were buying a ship on the auction block or black market. A great way to eliminate the super fleet syndrom would be to add an NPC gang of pirates, smugglers, and other fringe characters that would prey on your worlds if you didn't have sufficient forces to defend them. This would force a player to spread out his forces. Other possiblities would be to require the deployment of X number of freighters in a fleet per Y number of combat ships or the combat ships begin to degrade in capability (Or you could have the computer simply scrap em). Maybe having supply requirements for each vessel and making it possible to assign ships to supply a craft and force that vessel to fly from a supply dumb (A Buildable ground or space installation that would be really expensive) to the ship whenever supplies were needed. The best way to eliminate super fleets however would be make the production of combat vessels a time consuming and costly process. If it takes you months to build an ISD and you try and build six of them the AI will try something before hand. An aggressive AI designed with smaller fleet actions in mind would definitely be useful in this area.

Stellar decides to wade into the fight swinging. Firstly there are several points to be made. Jahled, while I can see where you're coming from thats a pretty horid analogy. The difference between the two types of craft are quite extreme, much more extreme then the difference between the TIE/In and the T-65B. The main difference between the two comes down to a difference in design philosophy and to illustrate this I'll go to everybody's favorite example of warfare, WWII. In the Pacific War, the United States and the Empire of Japan had two distinctly different approaches to fighter design. The IJN came up with the A6M2 Zero, a fighter that out turned, out climbed, and out fought most of its fighters. The USAAF came up with craft like the P-47, the P-38, and the P-51, none of which could out climb or out turn the later model of Zero. They featured heavier armor, armament, and dive speed. The same is true of the situation in the Star Wars Universe. A TIE/In is more maneuverable, lightly armed, and slightly faster then an X-wing. Whereas an X-wing is more heavily armed and armored (Shields). In short, the TIE is a dogfighter whereas the X-wing is a hit and run craft. They're not really completely outclassed by one another but come from two different ideas as to how starfighter combat would occur in the future. Dogfights or hit and run. Another thing Jahled just because a craft is obsolete doesn't mean that production of the craft just stops and is replaced. The majority of the Soviet Air Force was made up of I-16s in 1943 when it had already been obsolete in 1939 and they had more modern aircraft in their inventory. Most important of all Jahled, remember its the pilot not the plane that decides most engagements.