19 replies to this topic

[Phoenix Rising]

With the addition of the Republic-class Star Destroyer, the Rebels finally get a battleship! The Republic-class is a modernized version of the Clone Wars-era Victory-class Star Destroyer, sporting no less than 100 individual weapons. Their firepower is a good compliment to the relatively defensive Mon Calamari ships. To see the rest of its stats, just head to the Units page, subsection Battleships.

An update on overall progress: with this latest development, the Alliance is more or less where I would like them to be in terms of being ready for a release. I have more work to do on the Empire yet, and a few things that don't lend themselves well to news posts (such as icons), but after that, I will be gearing up for our first release!

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 14 March 2007 - 01:13 AM.

[RebelScum]

Looking good with that Republic-class Destroyer , but I'm wondering about this: Will there be a hardpoint for each weapon, meaning will the ships have dozens or hundreds of hardpoints? Or will they be non-destructable hardpoints and any damage goes to the ship's hull?

[Phoenix Rising]

Unless the guns are really close and visually indiscernible on the geometry (such as I assumed to be the case with some of the pods on the Dreadnaught-class and the ridges on this one), each one has its own firing bone. All guns have their own hardpoint, however. The Republic-class has 100 hardpoints using a combined total of 76 unique bones. It takes forever to rig this way, but the end result is worth it.

All hardpoints have been made indestructible in hopes of eliminating some of the bugs associated with them that were in EaW, such as extra missiles passing through freshly-destroyed hardpoints and damage against the hull being negated. It's less micromanagement and makes battle harder, but takes away some of the tactical options. It's different from vanilla.

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 14 March 2007 - 11:40 PM.

[slornie]

sounds (and looks) good... i take it this is an extension into NR territory... you say each unit has 8 build levels, does this take into consideration things like the Victory and Imperial SD's Mk1 and 2's ?

my only real concern is whether the game is capable of handling such large numbers of hardpoints and projectiles ?

Edited by slornie, 15 March 2007 - 01:26 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, I had to go that far down the timeline to come up with a proper battleship for them. But that's nothing new considering the E-wing and K-wing; I will continue to draw units and heroes from the post-Endor period under the assumption that historical events are determined by the canon timeline, whereas the player's timeline is determined by his or her decisions. Like what if Palpatine had not been killed at Endor? What if Thrawn had not been pursuing Zaarin? What if Luke turned to the dark side? And so on. The war likely would have continued along with research and development.

Each unit will have 10 variants with things like Imperial I and Imperial II being included in the Imperial-class line. Victorys are a bit of a problem because the II is worse than the I, but I'll work something out.

FoC is specked for a 1.0 GHz processor and 32 MB RAM video card. I'm going to assume it's safe to say anyone who is into the mod community is going to have something significantly better. I'm only running an AMD Athlon 3000+ and GeForce 7900 GS, but I have no problems (as you can somewhat tell by the screenshots). The only limitation I've run into is that the sum of the names of the hardpoints on one unit cannot exceed 4096 (2^12) characters in length. So I just start abbreviating at that point. No worries.

[slornie]

so it would be like the first four varients of the Imperial class as MkI and the last four as MkII ?

i know that this is a bit far ahead, but will you be adding other units into future versions of the mod (if there are any) ?

this probably isnt suitable seeing as the mini events arent active in FoC (and i dont know if they can be enabled or if you are intending to) - but could you not have something like the gain new recruits, where the rebels have some imperials defect (along with their Victory SD for example) ? - or perhaps a varient on the steal abiliy where your hero persuades a unit to defect, which then spawns at one of your planets ?

[Phoenix Rising]

First variant is the Imperial I-class, second is the Imperial II-class, tenth is the Imperial X-class. Improvements are significant. The upgrade from I to II is a little more than I would like it to be, but in all cases, I try to stick to canon first. I will probably just underpower III and IV a little bit to compensate.

There are more units planned, yes. I'm just trying to polish these ones up enough to give you something to playtest in the meantime while I keep working.

Yeah, I tried to re-enable the events, but it didn't work. I must be missing something. I re-enabled the EaW campaigns and they work in those though. I'm hesitant to give every unit to every faction however, because then there would be no weaknesses. There are a lot of things I want to do, but I'm not sure if are possible or not within the constraints of the engine.

[slornie]

oh yeah... i forgot it follows canon then expands as a 'what if' scenario...

sounds good, im looking forward to your mod (as ive said before)...

well if it doesnt work it doesnt work, but you are right in that having all factions with all units would remove a lot of the tactical and situational differences in the game...

[Phoenix Rising]

I just make the assumption that if the research was not conducted, it could have been. Take the A-wing for example. It pretty much disappears from the EU after like 5 ABY on what translates into its third variant in terms of the mod and is never heard from again. I think it was the X-wing series that talks about how the X-wing was outclassing the A-wing, but the X-wings at that point were on their fifth variant. Now, the X-wing is no interceptor; it's space superiority. Same with the E-wing's designation of escort fighter (akin to the TIE Defender's fleet defender), which is basically just a space superiority craft that can more successfully engage capital ships. Had the A-wing continued to be updated, there's no doubt it would have been the fastest starfighter in the New Republic fleet. As it were, the A-wing was (presumably) retired, but that's an indication of the kind of battle they were facing - it wasn't hoardes of TIEs, it was superweapons and dreadnoughts. So you go with the fighters that can also engage capital ships if needed. Had Zaarin not gone rogue, it might have been a different story.

[RebelScum]

Actually Phoenix, you're wrong about the A-wing being retired. Yes, it was somewhat obsolete, and the X-wing and the E-wing were better suited to attacking capital ships, but the A-wing was still used during the Yuuzhan Vong War, apparently because of its unique design. Even pirates and local defense forces got their hands on a few of them. I'd fly an A-wing anyday . Yes I am suicidal .

By the way, if you want to see this for yourself, go to www.wookieepedia.com

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, I need to finish the NJO. At any rate, the EU authors forgot to mention it for like 15 years and it wasn't explicitly updated after the Incom standardization, but... it can be in PR .

[slornie]

so how do all of the units balance in PR ? - with all the canon statistics being used - and all the uncanon improvements (you cant use statistics for what isnt known can you ) - and do you have a final changes list for the mod ? - units, heroes, etc, etc

[Phoenix Rising]

I'm only changing three aspects for balance purposes - cost, build time, and population cost. Build time is generally related to cost. Population cost is done by class, with the exception of dreadnoughts, which are done by length. And I'm working on a formula to better calculate cost by, which needs to be done before the release. There are also, of course, more subtle things I can do to influence balance, such as affecting a unit's position within its class tree (although it is generally based on when the unit first came into service unless there's a good exception), changing whether or not any planets/heroes offer discounts/bonuses for the unit, and scaling back the early variants.

The final unit list is pretty much what's listed on the site. For now I axed the Marauder-class because of improper bones and TIE Phantom because the Empire had too many fighters, but they should show up in another release. Depending on how things go, I may add one more unit; we'll see. There are some subtle imbalances between the two factions, but I am interested to see how players (besides myself) exploit them in order to win. For example, the Empire is weak on corvettes (which I think is generally true canonically as well) and the Alliance is weak on transports.

As far as heroes go, I'm looking into adding a few more non-combat heroes to both sides, so I don't have a final list yet. A lot of the bonuses have been reworked though. For example, Garm Bel Iblis gives you a stacking bonus to Dreadnaught-class combat because of his experience with the Katana Fleet and Ackbar reduces the cost of B-wing upgrades because of his involvement with Project Shantipole.

I've actually accomplished a lot in the past week or so; I should have a news update either later today or tomorrow.

[slornie]

sounds good - still looking forward to it

[RebelScum]

Sounds like you're introducing a new side to EaW modding: upgrades. I like the sound of that.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, I know I said I would have a news update like five days ago and I'm sorry. I meant to finish the light turbolaser and ion bones on the new Imperial-class model. Instead, I got sidetracked and updated every other model. I went back and looked over smoothing groups, collision/shield meshes, engine particles, and ability particles (power to weapons). I even reskinned a few things. I also just fixed the specular problem where the ships were looking too washed out. I've updated some of the unit images to reflect these changes (most noticeably, the E-wing and CC-7700), but not all. Hopefully I can get the bones and model finished soon for that destroyer.

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 26 March 2007 - 04:36 PM.

[RebelScum]

It's all good, Phoenix. I mean, you're like the only guy on the modding team other than EvilleJedi, and you want to get it right, so take your time. Having said that, if you want some suggestions for new ships, let me know, because I'm VERY interested in this.

[Phoenix Rising]

Technically I am the only guy on the team; I'm just using EvilleJedi's models from his Warlords mod, but I want to give proper credit.

If you want to talk ships, start a thread in the Star Wars sub-forum - that's why it's there. Even if it's just about ships that have already been added, I found it very interesting to see how they stack up to each other canonically (or at least as close as I can get it). For example, Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruisers absolutely obliterate fighters... who knew ?

[RebelScum]

Apparently, the unfortunate pilots who got shot down knew that Dreadnaught Heavy Crusiers could obliterate fighters. And, of course, the gunners probably realized that, too.

[Phoenix Rising]

True enough, but I meant that no one has ever written about it (although it's been a while since I read the Thrawn trilogy).

I'm uploading new screenshots right now .