27 replies to this topic

[Phoenix Rising]

Everyone who has played EaW knows that there are five starbase levels, but what they may not know is that when the game was in alpha stages, there were also five ground base levels and no special structures. Fortunately for the sake of complexity, the decision was made to break up the ground bases into individual components and create the special structures - the barracks, vehicle factories, and so on - that we have today. Unfortunately, space seems to have gotten overlooked in this regard, as we have only two structures for space, and just one if you aren't playing as the Empire.

For this week's update, I wanted to do something a little different, so I ended up laying the groundwork for adding special structures to space. These work just like the long-range scanner and gravity well station; they use the same slots, of which there are only a finite amount available for each planet, although that number will change as part of the galaxy revamp to reflect the increase in options. This experiment culminated in the addition of the XQ5 Platform to the mod.

Now, if you played any of the X-wing games, you'll remember the XQ series of platforms and they're not anything fancy; indeed, their armament is worse than some corvettes, but they're also not meant to withstand major attacks on their own. As they are commonly used for customs duty, my initial idea was to give them the piracy corruption effect so that the player would receive a one-time income bonus every time an enemy ship passed through the system, but it seems that that ability is hardcoded, so I had to settle for a fixed amount instead. At any rate, despite the XQ5's apparent lack of military use, they do provide another option for income. Full stats can be read under the new Structures section, subsection Space.

Of course, now that the first one is done, adding more will be relatively easy...

[slornie]

Sounds like another great addition.

[Hostile]

I think that is down right cool. I love the idea. I'm curious to see what other structures for space you are able to conjure up.

[RebelScum]

Very creative, Phoenix.

I have a quick question: since you're doing structures for space other than the starbase, are u going to create structures that build starfighters, capitial ships, etc., such as starfighter shipyards?

[Theempirewins]

Careful Phoenix, if you keep adding features, you end up having not a mod but a whole new game LOL



Nice addition this structure !

[Imrix]

This looks very interesting... The notion of buildings to let you build starfighters and such put forward by RebelScum is interesting too. If used, you could add many more ship types, but require structures for the "advanced" stuff. So, Empire would have access to TIE Fighters and Bombers without anything else, but to get access to TIE Advanced, TIE Defenders, Assault Gunboats and Nova Wings, they'd need to build some form of structure. It'd save a lot of build slots.

Also, since you're messing about with structures these days, might I remind you of the idea I came up with a while back of adding complements of satellite defenses to space maps as a build option?

[Phoenix Rising]

I have a quick question: since you're doing structures for space other than the starbase, are u going to create structures that build starfighters, capitial ships, etc., such as starfighter shipyards?

I might. Otherwise they could simply decrease the build time for certain units from the starbase.

[Phoenix Rising]

and then maybe we could move them around like the groud stuctures, could you do that or is that only avaliable to land or would crash the game or make it loook funny?

That's something they coded so I won't be able to bring that functionality over to space. I'm not even confident that I can make them sellable or show more than just the first two...

[Imrix]

I THINK you can already sell the ones you can build in the base game, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Also, while I agree decreasing build time would be an excellent idea, using the buildings to allow access to the ships would mean a lot more room for ship-building choices.

[Phoenix Rising]

Not for space you can't.

[Pred the Penguin]

Interesting update...
Though I'm still at a loss for what it really is.

[Phoenix Rising]

Planet-specific buildings? Probably not; I only have a limited number of models to work with.

As far as changing the sale price factor, unless I missed the tag in GameConstants.xml, I don't think that's something PG made extensible, so I can't change it.

[Rob]

I got nostalgic recently and almost installed the old TIE game,you know, for old time's sake! But your mod looks like it will satisfy everyone's craving for a decent RTS game, appeal to their love of Star Wars (canon, not tartan-cruiser-crap) and bring back fond memories ALL at the SAME time!
:-)

[Phoenix Rising]

I actually just dug out my old joystick in order to get XWA to run so I could double-check some turbolaser counts . That's how you do it right: primary sourcing... none of this Wookieepedia crap .

[Pred the Penguin]

Must be kinda fun dodging turbolaser fire and enemy starfighters while counting stubs on a ship.

Too bad I've never played it... I think I've watched my friend play it though. O_o

[Phoenix Rising]

Fortunately there's a tech room and I can also trigger invulnerability from the options menu should I have to go out, so I'm not that much of a hero .

[Pred the Penguin]

They wouldn't look much different, and I'm pretty sure ground battles are available in Galactic Conquest.