Website update, April 17th

[PopsiclePete]

Nobody's tired of Fridays yet ? Good ! Here's our weekly update:

More voices

This week, once again, biggest progress is in voiceovers. Although we're still waiting for those last 70 voiceovers to be recorded, Tempest has finished processing all the remaining voiceovers we already had. We're now down to just two characters still absent. Hopefully, they'll be recorded in another week or two. You know, so far in all five episodes of Standoff we've had a grand total of 2883 voiceover lines recorded and implemented - looking at it from that perspective, the remaining 70 lines of voiceovers really aren't much.

The bad news is that there's still no progress in music. Or at least, no reports of progress. Our musician, Michael, doesn't really have much time these days to keep in touch with the team on a daily basis - to be honest, sometimes we don't hear from him for months, and then, just when we start worrying if he's still alive, we receive a huge chunk of music :-). I hope that's how it's gonna be this time too. In the meantime, though, I'm afraid that even though the rest of the project is so close to finished, we're still not going to announce any kind of release dates. Not until we have some idea of where Michael's at with the remaining cutscenes.

Meanwhile, missions haven't moved much this week either - we take breaks for Easter too, you know :-). Quarto is still working on the Marine mission. And whining. I'm not sure what he's complaining about - he planned all the missions, so if there's anything difficult to implement in there, he's only got himself to blame ;-).

[Mancubus]

Originally Posted by PopsiclePete

Nobody's tired of Fridays yet ? Good ! Here's our weekly update:

It's sutarday the 18th for over 1 and a half hours here already

Either way, it is good to hear of steady progress. Hope that you'lll be able to release this year, even though i'ts sad itt's the last episode now

[Tigerhawk]

Originally Posted by PopsiclePete

Nobody's tired of Fridays yet ? Good ! Here's our weekly update:

All that means is that it'll be that much sweeter when y'all are able to release it. I foresee that the CIC is going to be sweating bandwidth at that point.


Thanks for the update!

[Andropolos]

Thank you so much guys for the continuing hours you put into this. Much appreciated!

[Quarto]

Well, it was a long weekend - and then I worked on it a bit more today (...when I should have been working on actual work ), but it looks like the Marine mission works nice and smoothly now.

So, now it's onto the next mission. And not just any mission - it's the last losing path mission, and it's the final mission. Will I get anywhere with it before this week's update? Tune in on friday to find out .

[ChrisReid]

Originally Posted by Tigerhawk

All that means is that it'll be that much sweeter when y'all are able to release it. I foresee that the CIC is going to be sweating bandwidth at that point.

Our record is over 300 gigs transferred in a day. We've got an even better setup now, so hopefully Episode 5 can beat that.

[DarkOne]

Originally Posted by ChrisReid

Our record is over 300 gigs transferred in a day. We've got an even better setup now, so hopefully Episode 5 can beat that.

Wow that's pretty impressive. I think I might need to find a new provider that can up my bandwidth because I have to stick quota's in most of the time or i'll have to pay extra. I hit 300gb a day in bandwidth and i'd have to shutdown on day 5

[Sharpshooter]

Originally Posted by Quarto

Well, it was a long weekend - and then I worked on it a bit more today (...when I should have been working on actual work ), but it looks like the Marine mission works nice and smoothly now.

In order to celebrate this update, I'm posting an interesting, over-eight-year-old quote :

"You'd need a hell of a computer to handle all those ships...

...And you'd need to be a hell of a pilot to make a difference. Most of us would probably be forced to eject within minutes of the start of the battle." - Quarto, talking about the Battle of Terra.

If you haven't changed your mind, it looks like that's going to be a very tough battle indeed.

[Wedge009]

Strangely enough, I remember that. Was it really eight years ago? My goodness...

[Sharpshooter]

Yep, it was. By the way, here's a link to the original post in case anyone cares.

[Quarto]

Originally Posted by Sharpshooter

If you haven't changed your mind, it looks like that's going to be a very tough battle indeed.

Well, that's the thing - I haven't changed my mind, and that's why we're not doing it. Let's face it, what we're seeing in Standoff is a toned-down, watered-down sissy version of the Battle of Terra . We don't ever have more than 60-70 ships (well, maybe 80 ) fighting at any given time. I don't know if our computers these days would have trouble with several hundred ships (though the WCP engine certainly would), but the game balancing issues turned out to be exactly what I wrote then.

The real irony, of course, is that while I was already working on UE at that time, I never would have expected to do a mod depicting the Battle of Terra. I literally though this battle could not be made in any decent way. And on that count, I most definitely was wrong - our Battle of Terra may be toned-down, but it sure feels right, and it sure is fun .

[Wedge009]

Aye, game-play balancing is always very tricky. Sounds like you pulled something off really nicely, though.

[frostytheplebe]

Originally Posted by Wedge009

Aye, game-play balancing is always very tricky. Sounds like you pulled something off really nicely, though.

KUDOS TO YOU BOYS! I have a bottle of some mighty fine Gold Label I plan on cracking open once the game is released in its entirety!

[Iceblade]

battle of earth would span many navs (with a much shorter distance between)...only the closer large vessels outside of the nav and the hakagas would be visible, but still it would be possible to do battle of terra (nav transitioning with not all enemies being near or going after you so they could disappear from the nav...not too difficult to get them to disappear at a defined distance from the player)

[Dundradal]

At BoT there wasn't two battle lines formed up between the fleets. They were a comfortable distance away from each other (remember it's mostly a carrier battle with only a very few ships of the line engaging each other during strikes).

The battles that are in play for Ep 5 do a fantastic job of making you feel that you really are in the middle of the greatest battle of the war. I can't tell you how many times I've just caught myself staring at the mass of objects in front of me and saying "holy shit...I'm in the middle of damn war!"

[Andropolos]

I think this is about the best thing one could say for the game and music to the ears of us waiting to play it. Go Team, Go!

[frostytheplebe]

Originally Posted by Dundradal

At BoT there wasn't two battle lines formed up between the fleets. They were a comfortable distance away from each other (remember it's mostly a carrier battle with only a very few ships of the line engaging each other during strikes).

The battles that are in play for Ep 5 do a fantastic job of making you feel that you really are in the middle of the greatest battle of the war. I can't tell you how many times I've just caught myself staring at the mass of objects in front of me and saying "holy shit...I'm in the middle of damn war!"

Haha Nice! During that Corvette battle in Ep. 4 I got so caught up in it, I was like, "Red Leader, this is Gold leader, I'm starting my attack." Don't ask me why...