52 replies to this topic

[Phoenix Rising]

The second significant change since the mini-mod affects the hero system. Major heroes no longer respawn when killed and are no longer free; they are now purchased at the officer academy. To avoid over-cluttering the interface, heroes are buildable from only one planet, which is generally their home planet, although if it is not known, another relevant planet is substituted. If that planet is not featured in the game, the nearest available galactic neighbor is used based on the most accurate star charts that currently exist.

That means it will be harder to field fleets of heroes. Players may also have to adapt their strategies to the strengths and weaknesses of the heroes that they have available. But most importantly, this allows for hero upgrades.

There won't be nine upgrades for each hero like there are for units, but there may be more than one upgrade per hero. There may also be no upgrades for a hero; it just depends on who it is. These will generally be upgrades to the company transport unit, although other possibilities are being explored as well.

As with the heroic starfighters in the mini-mod, these transports will come fully upgraded, but will otherwise lack the hitpoint and damage bonuses of the starfighters. I know this isn't necessarily canonical, but it's the best compromise possible within the restrictions of the engine. Consider it a representation of the fact that heroes are assigned the best elements in the fleet with the best crews. Plus it provides an interesting option between purchasing all of the upgrades or just getting one really tricked out ship.

If you go back and look closely at the screenshots from last week, you will notice an Imperial-class Star Destroyer in formation with Mon Calamari star cruisers firing red turbolasers. This is the Rebel Dream, Leia Organa's transport upgrade. I've also added four completely new heroes to the mod: pilots Jek Porkins and Tycho Celchu for the Alliance and Cassio Tagge and Antonio Motti, completing the Death Star's command triumvirate, for the Empire.

[dark trooper]

I just have a question then if they die and you have to build them again do they cost alot so as to make it seem more improtant and devastating when you lose a hero?

[Phoenix Rising]

I'm tentatively basing the cost on their abilities and what units they get, but I haven't devised a comprehensive formula yet. So far it's anywhere from about 5k up to around 30k for someone like Ackbar. However - and this is something I forgot to mention in the post - if you lose an upgraded hero, you must start over from the beginning with upgrades.

[RoguePhoenix]

I forgot to mention in the post - if you lose an upgraded hero, you must start over from the beginning with upgrades.

seems fair, if you had a veteran crew of a ship, they got blown up and rebuilt then the new crew would nto be of the same caliber as the original. if that makes sense lol

i think its a great idea, as you mentioned there are plently of upgrades you could do for hero units, even add optional upgrades such as a choice between han piloting the falcon or commanding the Mon Remonda.

Be interesting how this will vary with the heros home planet too, not sure it will "historically correct" but the point of the game is to choose how the galaxy is shaped so i think your allowed some poetic license,

good luck with mate let us know if you need any ideas

[slornie]

nice Phoenix, im looking forward to seeing this in-game

so - will the heroes start in their starfighter then progress to their larger capital ships as you upgrade them ?

[Phoenix Rising]

Yes, you are allowed one ship of Transport class or smaller for "free" (cost is increased, but no additional upgrade required), assuming it pertains to the hero in some way. I'm assuming that in a galaxy-spanning military, somewhere someone is able to let a hotshot pilot borrow one starfighter, like how Luke just shows up on Yavin 4 and is assigned an X-wing after talking to Dreis for like 30 seconds.

So with the hypothetical case of Solo (I haven't decided on his upgrades yet), the Falcon is free, then you would pay for the Mon Remonda as an optional additional upgrade. The upgrades will be linear according to size or power if there is more than one, even if it breaks up the timeline a bit. So you wouldn't get the Mon Remonda first and then have the option to downgrade to the Etherhawk, or whatever, it would be the other way around. That's a bad example of making timeline exceptions, but you get the idea. The benefit to this is that you can recover some of the cost of the first upgrade when you trade up (it's factored into the price).

Just to elaborate a little more on how this works, you would initially recruit Leia, for example, from Alderaan (not Polis Massa). Historically, she might've been on Coruscant in the Senate, Ralltiir, Tatooine, or wherever during this time period, but we don't know the whereabouts of many of the minor characters at this time, much less a lot of their homeworlds, so I'm opting for consistency. I may later do this on a campaign-by-campaign basis, but it's impossible to say without having done those campaigns yet. At any rate, once you have Leia, you only need her to be at a level 5 starbase to purchase the Rebel Dream; you no longer need Alderaan. If she is killed in combat, all upgrades are lost and you would have to go back to Alderaan and start over at this point.

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 30 May 2007 - 01:17 PM.

[dark trooper]

so if alderaan got blown up by the eclipse or deathstar then you wouldn't be able to get leia anymore?

[Phoenix Rising]

Hadn't really thought of it, but you couldn't build any ground bases even if you controlled the planet, so that would be the case. Such heroes would be assumed to have been killed in the destruction (whereas a tactical death would only really be an extensive, bacta-treatable injury since they keep coming back). But it can be a double-edged sword for the Empire, since you would have planets like Corellia where Wedge Antilles and Soontir Fel would both spawn from.

[dark trooper]

awesome so now i actually have a reason not to rush to deathstar then blow every single world that i don't own up.

[Phoenix Rising]

Haha, that's a really cool picture just to prove your point and canonically, that is how it should go. But there are a few problems for gameplay reasons. For one, going from the Admonitor to the Grey Wolf doesn't really get you anything tangible in return, just a new name. The second issue is that each unique ship can appear only once, so if possible, I have to choose other heroes to command those vessels in cases like Thrawn, where he has three Imperial-class Star Destroyers to pick from. So I've given Thrawn the Admonitor and I'm saving the Chimaera for Pellaeon.

I think the point about the Guardian is interesting though, but I'm not sure I would give him that ship specifically, since it was badly damaged and possibly captured before Thrawn's return from the Unknown Regions. Also it was in warlord hands while Thrawn remained loyal to the Empire.

So we know that most of the dreadnoughts left in the Empire seem to have been recalled to Byss for Operation Shadow Hand, which leaves Thrawn to command from an Imperial II. What's always bothered me though, is that Kuat fell just six months before Thrawn started his campaign - inevitably while he was messing around on Tatooine. Certainly there would have been some dreadnoughts left behind from Shadow Hand to protect Kuat, one of which Thrawn could have acquired for a command ship.

In fact, had Zsinj not attacked it, the Razor's Kiss would have been rolling off the lines right around the time Thrawn would have needed it... and since it was new, Kuat wouldn't have lost anything from its defense fleet. Staffing would have been no problem; Thrawn had clones for that. 178 Dreadnaughts sans slave-rigging would have required a crew total of 2,885,380... which just happens to be in-line with the approximated crew count for a 19-kilometer Executor-class at 3,300,000. And since the Kiss was never actually commissioned, it really isn't associated with anyone else and never will be. So I think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that Thrawn could have acquired it and put it into service; I mean, it just makes too much sense. I'll give that to him as his final upgrade.

[Rob]

I could not agree more. Razor kiss is perfect. Maybe you could have the upgrade only purchasable from Wayland, or whereever the clones were coming from. The reason I put several ISD Is in the upgrade line was that a SSD is obvioulsy a very, very hard nut to crack. By forcing the player to work his/her way through several lighter ships (and pay for them) it raises the cost of the SSD and slows down the process of getting one. It would unbalance the game if within 10 minutes of starting Thrawn is wandering around with a SSD blasting the kack out of anything that moves. In the story, Thrawn's career was spent travelling huge distances. If the player had to complete several meaningless upgrades on very different planets (i.e. start off with a ISD before the upgrade and end up with a different ISD after) it would simulate the difficulty Thrawn had, as an Alien, being awarded a command ship to match his undoubted ability. Once they've been through these unhelpful upgrades, Thrawn will finally be rewarded with a SSD. But if it's not practical, maybe you can set the timer so it takes a long, long time to build or has other pre-requisites like SSD technology or something.

If you can't give Thrawn the Chimaera, how about the 'Death's Head'?


Just for fun:

[Phoenix Rising]

This is true; it would serve as a deterrent to the better upgrades. But so does the price of the actual unit, which is going to be doubled to account for coming fully-upgraded. So you would have to pay around 300k to get a heroic Executor-class (I've provisionally set the cost to 150k, but there's really no way to tell if that's high or low until the unit is finished). I will consider redundant transport upgrades, but only for balance reasons.

[The Maw 28]

The second significant change since the mini-mod affects the hero system. Major heroes no longer respawn when killed and are no longer free; they are now purchased at the officer academy. To avoid over-cluttering the interface, heroes are buildable from only one planet, which is generally their home planet, although if it is not known, another relevant planet is substituted. If that planet is not featured in the game, the nearest available galactic neighbor is used based on the most accurate star charts that currently exist.

That means it will be harder to field fleets of heroes. Players may also have to adapt their strategies to the strengths and weaknesses of the heroes that they have available. But most importantly, this allows for hero upgrades.

There won't be nine upgrades for each hero like there are for units, but there may be more than one upgrade per hero. There may also be no upgrades for a hero; it just depends on who it is. These will generally be upgrades to the company transport unit, although other possibilities are being explored as well.

As with the heroic starfighters in the mini-mod, these transports will come fully upgraded, but will otherwise lack the hitpoint and damage bonuses of the starfighters. I know this isn't necessarily canonical, but it's the best compromise possible within the restrictions of the engine. Consider it a representation of the fact that heroes are assigned the best elements in the fleet with the best crews. Plus it provides an interesting option between purchasing all of the upgrades or just getting one really tricked out ship.

If you go back and look closely at the screenshots from last week, you will notice an Imperial-class Star Destroyer in formation with Mon Calamari star cruisers firing red turbolasers. This is the Rebel Dream, Leia Organa's transport upgrade. I've also added four completely new heroes to the mod: pilots Jek Porkins and Tycho Celchu for the Alliance and Cassio Tagge and Antonio Motti, completing the Death Star's command triumvirate, for the Empire.

Dear Phoenix,
I admit to being a little confused by your hero system.
Does this mean you have to build Officer Academies on EVERY PLANET just to see if you get a hero?
DO you have a list of each hero's upgrades and can you give an example of a standard unit's 9 upgrades.
How do you upgrade an ISD?

Love the new models - at last someone who remembers all those nice units in Star Wars Supremacy!

[Phoenix Rising]

I'll try to make a list or something in the campaign notes as to which hero is where. I don't have a complete list of hero upgrades yet because they're not all done, but here's the unit example:

Z-95Mk1 Headhunter > ...
\/
T-65A X-wing > T-65B/T-65AC1 X-wing > T-65C/T-65AC2 X-wing > T-65F/T-65AC3 X-wing > T-65I/T-65AC4 X-wing > T-65J/XJ X-wing > T-65J3/XJ3 X-wing > T-65J5/XJ5 X-wing > T-65J6/XJ6 X-wing > T-65J7/XJ7 X-wing
\/
R-22 Spearhead > ...
\/
...

The Imperial-class upgrades will work the same way; you would need a research facility and a level 5 starbase.

[Imrix]

Simple answer. You start the game with every Hero- include their home planet (where you "rebuild" them) in the popup window they have below all the other info. Somebody doesn't think to check it? Well that's their fault for being schtupid!

[Phoenix Rising]

Well, the problem is I'm planning on making that vary by campaign, but the advantage is that I can include as many different build planets as I want then.

[Imrix]

Hmm... That *is* problematic... No, nothing occurs this once.