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So I don't think I ever asked on this ship model specifically, but would you mind if I tossed this into BTC?

I even have a purpose planned out for it!  I've always wanted to have a knife-fighting ship in the game, and I figured this would fit the bill.  Think the Arilou ships from Star Control if you've ever played it; 360-degree weapons and insane maneuver, but you really need to take care to avoid being hit or it's going to... hurt.

Reporting for duty... sir?

Yeah, there are actually a ton of options you have when it comes to working out the maneuver characteristics: mass, maneuver, top speed, strafe speed, ect.  Strafe speed is a fun one as well, and might be useful for you when you get around to the gunship; that's how I actually did mine, making them behave much like helicopters do in real life with limited speed (at least compared to fixed-wing craft) but exceptional turn and strafe abilities and fairly fixed forward gun arcs.  It makes for a fairly fun alternate playstyle, or at least it has for me, and synchs nicely with the mouse-turn mode instead of mouse-aim mode.

That reminds me, too, I've always kinda wanted to do the reverse and make a ship that was effectively unable to strafe as a balance mechanism.  Some ships from various canons don't look like they ought to be able to.

Very nice work on that modeling.

Might want to watch the -90% maneuver, though, as it can make ships practically unusable at times.  I found slightly better to tweak with ship mass values instead, personally.

Totally agreed on R&D as well.   I know modding/upgrading was also on the slate for post-release if it does well, and it seems to be thus far.  Decent reviews, hopefully those are translating to good sales numbers for 'em.

Reserving for a list of known issues with BTC 2.0.0.

1) Ballistic weapons on the carrier module drones not properly updated to new particle effects.
2) Some residual modules slipping through from vanilla VE.
3) Shockwave cannon removed until it can be reworked into something less-clunky.
4) MLRS turret model needs some detailing on the skin.

Okay!  It's not -fully- updated yet, but I'm happy enough with it that I'll put up a test link here.  Welcome to the alpha for BTC 2.0.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e59cg3vxnovac1o/BTC200.zip?dl=0

Please, go ahead and snag it, give it a try!  This is mostly just an update for the weapons thus far, with new particle visual effects.  Over the next few days I'll be stripping out the remainder of the vanilla items that are newly-added, putting back in the BTC expansion modules and devices, and providing the BTC weapons/hulls to the bad guys in the universe.  Please DO provide me with whatever feedback you'd like; in particular I really need people's opinions on the flight modeling at higher levels and general thoughts on the weapons; what seems to be overpowered or underpowered, ect.

Thanks in advance!

Constructable stations, if I recall, were something they were going to look into if sales go well and they can continue development. 

As to some of the rest, I actually agree.  Omni slots in particular I'd love to see.  I suppose I just try to be realistic about what they're all able to implement as a smaller developer and try to find creative ways to work within in the system as I can.  Always nice to have a wish list, though!

One way I'm looking into making capital ships, BTW, is through Capital Turrets.  While we may not be able to put on more that four weapons currently, there's nothing limiting us from making turrets that are limited to larger chassis through a hull effect and then sticking 2-3 regular-size guns on that turret.  If you play with hardpoint sizes you can even work in a mix of capital weapons and support weapons much like you might see on current blue-water warships; if you take a look at the Zeus Capital (ZEUS-XX) in BTC it's rigged up that way with capital weapons enabled but turret sizes of 2 medium (support lasers) and 1 large (underslung spinal-mount ballistic for the massive rail cannon).

Looking at the turret model in there named dualbox is a good indicator of how this can be done, too.  A few patches back AT was nice to us modders and allowed us to set the original point for projectiles and muzzle flash so that true multi-weapon turrets are very possible.  A few of my weapons actually make use of it and have the appearance of alternating between left-right fire using that model.

Anyway!  Didn't mean to derail the thread, either.  Just figured I'd give some suggestions/ideas to think on for the stuff you wanted to do while we continue to hope for the pie-in-the-sky stuff.

A second question for when you guys have a moment, related to the above: is the hitbox attribute of a projectile used only if that projectile is a sprite or ray?

One of the cooler effects I have been able to produce is using a micro-sized model with trails attached to give a plasma-like effect of seeing just the trail, but it seems to be having issues clipping through targets.  Not sure if it's because of issues with the local server (lag of a sort) or because it's attempting to use the true 3D hitbox of the projectile (which is micro-sized, I think I currently have the scale set to about 0.001, making it effectively invisible).

So far as I know from what was said in the past, UI modifications are forever out of play because they're handled by a different package inside the core engine.

New straight types of weapons I don't think they have the API for, but you can get creative with the existing classifications like in my mod BTC; you can put custom effects types on specific hulls to enable a new weapon 'subclass'.  For mine the major example is on the missile hardpoints.  Some ships are able to equip straight, old-fashioned missile weapons while others are carriers and have those hardpoints converted to fighter bays; they can no longer use missiles or rockets but instead launch strike craft.

New skills (and effects/qualifications) are already possible in the game and easily done.  BTC as an example, again, has a 100% custom skilltree and uses none of the vanilla skills.  You just need to manage the effects area first, then set up new skills to grant those effects, then establish a hierarchy for the skills (what comes before each in the skill tree).  The GUI will then handle interpreting the hierarchy and produce a tree.

Damage types and shield resistances I'm not sure on, but it would be quite cool.

This actually reminded me  of another quickie, old question.

As opposed to projectile_type, what does dmg_type affect?  I know it affects (or seems to affect) if a shot can produce an AOE explosion at shot death or not (like a missile does) but does it also determine things like which damage multiplier affects it, or is that based on the turret type alone?

IE, if I take a missile launcher but instead of dmg_type 3, make them all dmg_type 1 (kinetic missiles or something) will Increased Missile Damage still affect them, or would they now use Ballistic or Energy mods?

As one of the trickier ones, I believe the answer to #5 is that even if you removed the skill, the item would stay equipped, they just would not be able to reequip it after a dismount.

Easiest way to test this is by setting starting equipment on a character class that far exceeds what a character can use; they can still fly around with it and use it.  It can even do odd things like sticking a missile weapon on an energy hardpoint and the like, or used to be able to at least.

Question #3 has been one I've been wanting to ask as well, since as I develop the classes in BTC I've been wanting to toss in class-specific quests.  Pretty sure there's a workaround for it, though, if it can't be taken directly (or used in an effecient way in scripts): since you can check for specific skills or effects, you just make skills that only a certain class can possess.  As an example, Scout might have a skill called Recon Specialization.  Scout starts with it at level 1 (and thus could develop skills that branch off it like normal) whereas for everyone else the skill requires level 99 (and thus is unobtainable).  This is how I had always envisioned classes working in my mod, and could be used to also check for the Recon Specialization > 1 to make a quest Scout-only.

This is something I desperately need for BTC.  Once I have things under control with updating it, I may be shooting you a PM.

Not quite yet.  Working on getting the mod up to snuff with the new graphics code (it's a damned big mod, so there is a ton to adjust in terms of how the projectiles display to get them how I want them).  v2.0 will be the Steam version and I'll go from there.

Currently I have the new energy and missile weapons all wrapped up.  Hulls and hull skins should be good to go as well, which just leaves ballistic weapons to rework and I should have a test version good to go that is compatible with VE 1.1/Steam release.  After that will come balancing as more people test it out, then the addition of additional expansion modules for ships and eventually class expansion.

Okay!  If you ever do, if you remember, try to mention it.  I miss putting trails on shots for a bit of extra graphical glory.  In the interim I just got around it by taking off the sprite on certain projectiles and using a teeny, barely-visible missile and then putting a trail on it; it just looks like the trail is the shot instead.