115 replies to this topic

[Defkab]

This may be dumb, but the majority of the Covenant space arsenal is just Forerunner designs redesigned. It's obvious that they kept the Prophets designs for starships and stations after the merger and creation of the Covenant, but they do still use Race specific tools (Most obviously in the case of Brutes...)
What if, for the space station idea, we use a holdover from the Prophet/Elite war? Since the Elites had interplanetary tech, and we haven't gotten too deep into Covie space, it wouldn't be canon, but also not too far-fetched to have an Elite Space Station...

[JasonAHawkins]

I remember playing a star wars mod for Sins Entrenchment a while ago, i believe it was Star Wars: Requiem or Sins of a Galactic Empire, where you could have a Super Star Destroyer that you could build as as space station that could jump gravity wells.

[SternuS]

I support the Hierophant idea. Just because you can make it as large as the Anchor Station, and you would stay somewhat canon; you see, High Charity is a Forerunner construction while the Hierophant isn't: this means that there might be different types of this starbase (for example, the Assault carrier and the Super carrier), larger or smaller, but making a quite smaller version of High Charity doesn't makes much sense to me, and it would look awkward.
AND making the Hierophant could take you less time and particles than High Charity, but i might be wrong on this...

[Zero]

High Charity wasn't built by the Forerunners... only the Keyship that powered the core was.

[KhevaKins]

If we are going to scale back something why does it have to be the Heiorphant. The High Charity Jr. is awesome.

[Unikraken]

We already have the model for the Hierophant done (you can find it on ModDB). We're just waiting to texture it when we have more covie ships done.

[KhevaKins]

Link???? Cause I am lazy.

http://www.moddb.com...arbase#imagebox

Never Mind. Found it.

I still think the High Charity Jr. n the play-tester beta is fine. Just needs a re-texture and it will be ready to rock. The Hierophant doesn't really fit into the covenant persona that the mod is aiming for. Like a static-ish repair refit station that didn't seem to have any real weapons. I think the starbase should definitely be repair/refit orientated but also pack a mean wallop and be able to move an jump between gravity wells.

[SternuS]

High Charity wasn't built by the Forerunners... only the Keyship that powered the core was.

Whoopsie, my bad. Well i've always thought it was built by the Forerunners...this changes a lot the way i used to look at it.

[Unikraken]

Link???? Cause I am lazy.

http://www.moddb.com...arbase#imagebox

Never Mind. Found it.

I still think the High Charity Jr. n the play-tester beta is fine. Just needs a re-texture and it will be ready to rock. The Hierophant doesn't really fit into the covenant persona that the mod is aiming for. Like a static-ish repair refit station that didn't seem to have any real weapons. I think the starbase should definitely be repair/refit orientated but also pack a mean wallop and be able to move an jump between gravity wells.

It looks like crap. It's not up to our standard. It won't be in the mod.

[KhevaKins]

Fine then. I guess I mostly just liked calling it High Charity Jr.

Hierophant Jr. sounds funny, you know.

[Defender0]

Heres a question: does the covenant star base have to be a scaled down version of high charity/unyeilding hierophant? Im not saying make something completely different from either of these stations, but is it a bad idea to come up with a different covenant starbase?

[Unikraken]

Heres a question: does the covenant star base have to be a scaled down version of high charity/unyeilding hierophant? Im not saying make something completely different from either of these stations, but is it a bad idea to come up with a different covenant starbase?

We have a model ready. Our Covenant modeler has a lot of work ahead of him already and he's got personal projects he's working on as well. We also have no concept artists aside from Levi, who is basically adapting stuff he's already designed. There just isn't time/room/talent to pull another one out our ass.

[Defender0]

We have a model ready. Our Covenant modeler has a lot of work ahead of him already and he's got personal projects he's working on as well. We also have no concept artists aside from Levi, who is basically adapting stuff he's already designed. There just isn't time/room/talent to pull another one out our ass.

Ok, i just wanted to throw that potential idea out there, see if it was possible

[MasterOfShips]

Fine then. I guess I mostly just liked calling it High Charity Jr.

Hierophant Jr. sounds funny, you know.

Personally I like calling it Lil' Heirophant. It sounds like a rapper who takes himself too seriously.

[Zero]

Can someone get an image of the placeholder? I don't think I've ever seen it.

[TheBigMan27]

Heres a question: does the covenant star base have to be a scaled down version of high charity/unyeilding hierophant? Im not saying make something completely different from either of these stations, but is it a bad idea to come up with a different covenant starbase?

Ok, kinda a big plot hole I'm seeing with "High Charity Jr." is that the actual High Charity is being powered by a Forerunner Dreadnought/Keyship. So would that in turn mean that all of the mini-High Charitys are powered by other Forerunner ships? As I understand it, the Prophets would instantly dissect any Forerunner tech they came into contact with or worshiped it like it was a new brand of Doritos. So while I guess it would be ok to say that they Covie starbases are just powered much like the Hierophant, I just feel like the whole idea of just kid's sizing High Charity is sort of... I don't want to say lazy, because that's the complete opposite of what the people in the mod are, they are actually extremely impressive. Got it! Uninspired! I just feel like making midget High Charity is just uninspired.

The more I think about it, the more I hate the idea of maybe even having Covenant stations. Maybe instead just have buildings that can give bonuses/buffs to ships. The dev team wouldn't even have to create new buildings for this, just have them added to current ones, i.e. ship yards improve strike craft repair rate, repair yards repair (no shit Sherlock), and have mining stations improve passive hull and shield regen (crystal=shield metal=hull). This way, almost all need for a starbase is eliminated (besides trade, can't think of anything on that for the moment) and makes everything a bit less butt fucky.

As shown in Ghosts of Onyx the Covenant do have major installations close to the field. Asteroid belts would fill this role perfectly if given the passive buffs suggested above, and could make gameplay in general much more interesting, as the Covenant would have to work hard to defend any belts close to the front lines. And if they get destroyed, it would take a much longer time for the Covie fleet to either wait a shit ton time to repair or get back to the closest asteroid belt for repairs, again tying in with Ghosts of Onyx canon lore.

Just my personal opinions, thank you

[Defender0]

High Charity is being powered by a Forerunner Dreadnought/Keyship

High Charity IS powered by the keyship, but only by its engines. The engines only output a fraction of its full power to fully power High Charity. On top of this, High Charity has backup fusion generators, which output enough power for slipspace travel.

On top of this, currently the Covenant starbase is the only reliable defense platform the Covenant have against a significant UNSC force. Without it, the covenant planets would drop like flies without fleet support. Im not saying the covenant need SMAC level defenses, im just saying there needs to at least be a few pieces of paper between the covenant planets and UNSC attackers.

[TheBigMan27]

High Charity IS powered by the keyship, but only by its engines. The engines only output a fraction of its full power to fully power High Charity. On top of this, High Charity has backup fusion generators, which output enough power for slipspace travel.

On top of this, currently the Covenant starbase is the only reliable defense platform the Covenant have against a significant UNSC force. Without it, the covenant planets would drop like flies without fleet support. Im not saying the covenant need SMAC level defenses, im just saying there needs to at least be a few pieces of paper between the covenant planets and UNSC attackers.

Ah my bad sorry.

And maybe that's what the Covenant need? A little fear in their daily lives. Stated before is how the Covenant are all about speed, agility, hit and run, absolute crushing force, and a blitzkrieg style of attack. So the Covies would have a very powerful navy, but shit defenses. If something sliped by your patrols, you'd be utterly and totally butt fucked, forcing you to either quickly make ships or recall some from the front lines. Could add some thought before hand on how you place your forces as the Covenant. You'd always want to make sure you had at least a small fleet near groups of planets for defense.

[Defender0]

I think thats what the mod team is going for, BUT!!! there should still be a tiny bit of defense. High Charity itself had a massive point defense grid surrounding it, which would decimate the entire UNSC fleet. It is not a far stretch to say that the covenant had some kind of defense grid around their planets, just not nearly as big as the UNSC. As such, there should be hangars for seraphs, repair stations, and a renamed, remodeled "Phase Stabilizer" from the vasari (to improve covenant mobility). Also, there is something that should be considered, and ill need a dev to answer this

removing a star base: is it stopped by hardcoding?

[Emberblaque]

Ok, kinda a big plot hole I'm seeing with "High Charity Jr." is that the actual High Charity is being powered by a Forerunner Dreadnought/Keyship. So would that in turn mean that all of the mini-High Charitys are powered by other Forerunner ships? As I understand it, the Prophets would instantly dissect any Forerunner tech they came into contact with or worshiped it like it was a new brand of Doritos. So while I guess it would be ok to say that they Covie starbases are just powered much like the Hierophant, I just feel like the whole idea of just kid's sizing High Charity is sort of... I don't want to say lazy, because that's the complete opposite of what the people in the mod are, they are actually extremely impressive. Got it! Uninspired! I just feel like making midget High Charity is just uninspired.

The more I think about it, the more I hate the idea of maybe even having Covenant stations. Maybe instead just have buildings that can give bonuses/buffs to ships. The dev team wouldn't even have to create new buildings for this, just have them added to current ones, i.e. ship yards improve strike craft repair rate, repair yards repair (no shit Sherlock), and have mining stations improve passive hull and shield regen (crystal=shield metal=hull). This way, almost all need for a starbase is eliminated (besides trade, can't think of anything on that for the moment) and makes everything a bit less butt fucky.

As shown in Ghosts of Onyx the Covenant do have major installations close to the field. Asteroid belts would fill this role perfectly if given the passive buffs suggested above, and could make gameplay in general much more interesting, as the Covenant would have to work hard to defend any belts close to the front lines. And if they get destroyed, it would take a much longer time for the Covie fleet to either wait a shit ton time to repair or get back to the closest asteroid belt for repairs, again tying in with Ghosts of Onyx canon lore.

Just my personal opinions, thank you

As Unikraken said, it's being removed anyway. Also, High Charity was clearly engineered by the Covenant, I don't see why they couldn't build smaller stations of similar design while changing the power source.

Were it implemented in the slightest, we don't want to leave the Covenant with too few planet modules, things like that can confuse the AI. From what I understand they expect a unit and module for each pre-defined role, too radical of a change could result in unusual behavior.

removing a star base: is it stopped by hardcoding?

I don't think that it's impossible, but once again, it would probably make the AI behave oddly.