3 replies to this topic

[Admiral Jamoking]

This is a mod that's been in development for a while, they're hoping for version one to be released later this year.

Mod Info:

Ultimate Empire at War is a conversion of Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption. It aims to include four eras of Star Wars history: the Age of the Old Republic, the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, and the Dawn of the New Republic in an re-created game that is more engaging on both the tactical and strategic level, enhancing gameplay and deepening it, as well as overhauling the graphics in the game.

In short - EaW the way it was meant to be - spanning Star Wars history in a deeply strategic game with high quality graphics and challenging gameplay.

The Mod will include new heroes, units, buildings, technologies, planets and weapons in a totally converted far deeper and more strategic game package, re-coded from the bottom up in aspects from tactical combat settings and systems to the galactic map and its functioning. Players will have a chance to take control of the dark side or light side in galactic conquests in each era, managing everything under that faction's banner, from research and military to economics and subterfuge. The Ultimate Empire at War campaign will also be available, which is a Galactic Campaign that spans every era of time in the mod, covering all material, units and heroes in the mod. More about the Ultimate Empire at War Galactic Campaign below.

The Eras:

The Old Republic (4,000 BBY - 1,000 BBY)
The two major forces in the galaxy during this time were the Republic and the Sith. Players choosing the Dark Side will follow the Sith throughout the Old Republic Era, while users choosing the Light Side will control the Old Republic.

Rise of the Empire (1,000 BBY - 0 BBY)
The Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems were the two major forces that UEAW is covering. Depending on which side of the force you are on , you will control the Galactic Republic (Light) or the CIS (Dark).

The Galactic Civil War (0 BBY - 4 ABY)
The Rebellion Era, although already covered in the game, will also be included in UEAW. The Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire will be the two major powers during this time that the player will take control of.

New Republic Era (5 ABY - 25 ABY)
During the period of time after the Galactic Civil War, the New Republic (Light) takes over, while the Imperial Remnant (Dark) is the faction that opposes them.

The Ultimate Empire at War Campaign
The Ultimate Empire at War Galactic Campaign is a massive campaign that spans all eras of time covered in the mod. Players will play as the Light Side and will follow the story of the galaxy throughout time. Each era will bring new weapons, technologies, heroes, units and planets, allowing the player to create bigger and more advanced armies and control more powerful heroes.

Developer Blog, Issue #9 (July 30, 2010)
Good Night, once again, to followers, fans, passers-by and any other assorted viewers of the 9th issue of the UEaW Dev's Blog! It's LTCC again, with some pretty pictures for you, and some idle banter.


For the last month or so, there have been delays, progress, headaches, but more progress. Personally, I've been occupied until very recently with family issues, trips to Germany and work, but am returning to full activity presently, and in the mean-time the staff have got on admirably on their own. I'm personally buzzing about the opportunity to start my Alpha-Testing and preliminary balancing very soon, and eventually sharing an early build of the mod with a few select beta-testers, who I hope will be suitably impressed with the vast scope (and download time ) of UEaW.

Since I'm on the topic of testing, I'll explain how I intend to go about setting up Beta-Testing for UEaW V1. This will, all going well, be in 3 stages:

Beta-1 - Preliminary Beta-Testing: 2-3 testers
Beta-2 - Primary release balance Beta-Testing: 5+ testers
Beta-3 - Advanced stage Beta-Testing, special feature and special additions testing: 4+ testers

Beta-1 will, all going well, be starting in a few weeks' time, and will consist of a small team of people who will provide feedback on the very core basics of V1; their copy will be the first Beta draft, so effectively their work will border on Alpha-Testing; hence the small team size and early testing. Their role will mainly be expanding the amount of people who can report in high detail and to impromptu and direct requests of investigation by staff. An extended limb of the team, because when we make and test simultaneously, it means less efficiency at both parts; and extra people will greatly increase the raw data we can gather. This team will not be responsible for bug-finding, since at this stage bugs will be expected en-masse . An important note, this small group will be taken from the oldest and most active and loyal members of UEaW's boards that apply; fans who have been with us from the start will at this stage receive absolute priority; a thank-you from us, and it'll help communication too, which will feed into Beta-2 (as I'll detail below; Beta-1 testers will become the Lead Testers of Beta-2/3 testing)


Beta-2 is the more classic Beta-Testing, and will be quite a few weeks after Beta-1, I should imagine. This will be a larger team whose jobs will be primarily geared towards playing the game and reporting back on basic combat and strategic balancing; and scouting out bugs. This team will be lead by the remaining members of Beta-1, who will be the lead Beta-Testers, and responsible for the most direct communication with the team and with me; and who the specific instructions (fewer hopefully at Beta-2, but still present and important) will go via and delegated by; duplication of investigation and collation of results on the same testing from multiple testers will be their responsibility. Additional Tester recruitment to make up the numbers for Beta-2 will be opened here more than for Beta-1, aiming to take 60% of intake from UEaW long-term fans (though these need not be the stalwart ancients we hope to recruit for Beta-1), and 40% fresh from the community to provide differing aspects, whilst still showing our gratitude to our followers.


Beta-3 will be the advanced stages of our Beta-Testing. This is likely to start 2 weeks or less before the public release of V1.0.0, and will likely extend beyond its release to the first patches afterwards. The role of Beta-3 Testing will be to test the advanced and complex functions (especially strategic in GC) of UEaW V1 - economy functions, special features and new concept additions to the game here will be scrutinised, as well as providing a team for anything that occurs, or anything we want to change or add after the release of V1.0.0. This stage will not be taking on new testers unless the circumstances of Beta-2 testers means we need to top our numbers up; which is unlikely. Beta-3 will be formed from the Beta-2 team.


Those wishing to become Beta-1 Testers (I'm sure the people who we feel are eligible and we have previously assured of their priority for such a role know who they are), please navigate here!


I hope you were at least mildly interested in that wall of test, so without further ado, I shall present a healthy array of eye-candy for you. Recently, we've been sorting out orbital structures and starbases - not only will these form your military, research and economic efforts in V1 due to the absence of land, but equally by V2, orbital structures will have far greater roles and diversity alongside their land counterparts, each with their distinctive characteristics leading to choices for the player. However, I digress!


We have much to show off, firstly, Evilbob's lovely Old Republic Station (pictured here as the fifth iteration, the 'level 5' version of this starbase; fully upgraded):



Since there is no canon example we could use, this was the product of looking at both Old Republic design influences (which are extremely well represented in the model, or so I feel), as well as influence in starbase-design drawn from other sci-fis to match the style and provide artistic inspiration.

Evilbob has been busy with many other orbital structures; and there are many, many more beautiful and intricate ones than the one that will follow, but that's exactly why I'm withholding them - they are major parts of the game, and will provide a pleasant surprise on release. Below is one of the replacements for the bog-standard, over-sized and removed and re-made defence satellites that one could build in tactical combat in vanilla:



The initials 'IGPODP' stand for 'Independent General Purpose Orbital Defensive Pod' - not a binding name, but a description. The player won't be able to build these in tactical combat (except in skirmish games), but rather must invest in networks of such defences just as one would with any other defences, in GC. This model mounts a double heavy laser cannon and two rocket pods, and when deployed in networks in orbit provides light fire support across the defensive area; General Purpose as it provides a balance between anti-starfighter and rocket-based basic anti-armour capability.


Finally, my contribution are the Sith Empire Starbases - I've compiled them into an animated GIF showing how it develops as you build it! Yet to be skinned, this is a WIP, but I hope its design is appreciated nonetheless:




Until next time - all the best.

LTCC
UEaW Project Co-Leader

Other Pictures:

Edited by Admiral Jamoking, 02 August 2010 - 08:43 PM.

[Admiral Jamoking]

Hi everybody..... (insert "Hi Dr. Nick" here)

More news from UEAW. You'll find news on what's been going on as terms of progress as well as a small Q & A featuring frequently answered questions. Also you'll find some screenshots that have been posted from before the news post that I had forgotten about:

From 9/15/10

Some News

Not the best news ever, a short bulletin to keep everybody enlightened as to what is happenening.

Work on UEaW V1 has been slow, and I'm having to set back the release date. This is due to a variety of reasons:

Firstly, we've lost a few staff members to their non-modding life considerations. This is an unavoidable reality and risk in all modding projects, and we wish them well and look forward to their potential return, however it is crippling to rate of work. In addition to this, a couple of staff members have had to cut down their workload for similar reasons.

Secondly, I personally am somewhat to blame - for two weeks I was (completely by surprise and unavoidably) removed from access to any PC and thus both internet and modding due to a surprise family holiday. I had a nice holiday, but there was no time for contingency planning and this has set us back a lot. On top of this, since then, I've had university considerations (OH, btw all, I'm going to medical school... Got my grades!), including sorting out funding, banks, pre-term work and all the stuff I'm going to need (woo, stethoscope, but also all the living gear) - which has been soaking my time up and reducing the time I can commit to modding. This, when considering the existing lack of staff, has only made matters worse, and all credit goes to Shimrra, who has done an excellent job of soldiering on, sometimes alone, with bits of the mod.

Thirdly; our first stage of beta-testing (it's basically late-alpha testing) has shown up various problems. None of these are game-breaking or unsolvable, but some are stubborn nuisances to remove and it just means our existing commitment to a release date isn't possible if we are to release V1 in both a fully working and quality game. I won't release a broken version, but I will equally not release it unfinished and un-varnished because of fixing taking up time.

I've also had a few queries recently, most of which already are answered or catered for, but I'll elaborate a few here:

'You should give us a unit list for V1'/'Where is the unit list for V1':
The unit list has been done and available to the public since early March. It can be found attached in pdf format to the first post of this thread. You may need to register on our boards to be able to see and access the attachment. If you experience problems with registering, contact me.

Even just the graphics you've shown us so far from UEaW V1 in media releases look good, but will my PC be able to handle it? [usually followed by a list of specs]
Any modern PC from the last 1-3 years (or perhaps older) should be able to handle V1; it doesn't require some sort of super-nerding-gaming-rig with recompiled kernel and the works. It is true, however, that there is far more stress than in vanilla due to the more detailed graphics:

- Far more complex particle graphics and, of course, a far greater number thereof from there being both more projectiles flying around, and each one having unique individual, UEaW-made particle effects varying for dud detonation, impacts, shield contact et cetera; not to mention the projectiles themselves being brand new.

- Most of our new models are far more detailed than vanilla, especially regarding their shadow meshes.

- And general improvements across the board, including of combat environments.

This said, even if your PC can't handle this, there will always be the option to turn down graphics settings in the options. There will be a graphics-tweaking guide included with V1 with instructions about how to get the best of V1 with lower-end systems.

Can you please do [x] to [y] that you have made?
Look, we're always open to input, but if you feel strongly that you'd prefer x stardome or y ship to look differently, please don't shout about it repeatedly. Everything can be changed, though there are some things we don't want to change. Thankyou for the input, but please don't jump around repeating it!

Will there be Super Star Destroyers in UEaW V1?
Probably. They'll be damned expensive (costing much more than OVER 9000 credits) and will take OVER 9000 years to make, but they'll be available, and not necessarily with a build limit, either.

Cool, realistically available but treasury-draining SSDs. Are they re-modelled?
No. It's been a long struggle just to produce 4 eras worth of normal space units of all shapes and sizes to such a quality - don't expect more than an Eclipse and Executor classes in V1, and using default models. They're not a main feature of V1, just a tactical availability to commanders with a LOT of money and patience (though they are canonically scaled against all the other ships, and toned down very little indeed). If all goes well and we release more versions, we may add such behemoths and their counterparts to other factions and eras.

Chris, can I has a cookie?
No. You must earn my love and adoration to receive a cookie, something not easily done, though achieved by a few of my favourite forum-goers. You may, however, help yourself to a muffin.

To everyone who follows us loyally - and I notice our Moddb watchers now exceed 500 members - my thanks. We will eventually get there, faster and better if anyone can help us and bolster our depleted staff ranks, but we'll arrive eventually. It is a very trying hobby; certainly not easy when one has so many other commitments in life, but we struggle on nonetheless.

My regards

LTCC

Here are some screenshots not related to news post but still apart of mod:

From 8/14/10:

Some alpha-stage shots:






From 9/4/10:

Test Shot Image (Testing WIP new skydomes for spacemaps):

[Admiral Jamoking]

Here's a small update from Solar and the UEAW staff showing off some of their current progress.

From 11/18/10

November News 2010

Long time no post, and this is my first News Post as well so here goes. Got some lovely Alpha shots from the first Era this month, been playing it a little in Galactic Conquest mode (i know, lucky me ) well, here goes - got our first shot which is of the GC itself, mostly Republic territory.

GC Picture

Next up is a picture of a fleet i took to a planet for a lovely picnic with some killing and destruction of the sith for afters

And finally, we have a closer shot of the Sith Interdictor in combat:

All good stuff as you can see. More next month and maybe hopefully more new content completly as we near release

Yours, Solar from UEAW

[Admiral Jamoking]

Some new info on what new features are to be expected in UEAW, as well as some general screenshots from the mod.

From 12/02/10

Good evening,

Due to the Mod of the Year award and several other factors, this monthly post is a little earlier than usual. First, the entire UEAW team thanks everyone who voted for us. We didn't expect this at all, and we're very happy about the confidence placed in us. We will do our best in the coming weeks to fulfil your expectations.

It's my pleasure to announce the publication of several new screenshots (see here), and the publication of a trailer within the next few days. Even if the trailer doesn't show a specific level of our mod's progress, we have recently Chris declared inactive, and put a remarkable amount of progress behind us.

Thus, we have implemented a complete sub menu system (for further explanation see later on this post) and implemented a new tech system. In addition, we have almost completed all the models now , so this is what remains before the release of V1:
· MP GCs
· AI
· Balancing
· Heroes (partly)
· Coding of the VA sounds into the game
· Some minor things to be fixed, bugs and various minor flaws in some models
· Perimeter outpost (sorry, created by Chris before he left, not uploaded)
This list was created by me to give a better overview of the mod progress
While Chris was more concerned about secrecy, I'm more inclined to be transparent about our progress.
Some information follows regarding the sub menu system and tech systems.

Sub Menu System
Since we wanted to bring a lot of new units into the mod, it was clear from the beginning that the 26 build buttons would not be sufficient for all the units we will add. The fact that in every era, more than 11 Special Structures are available in space, means half the available space is gone already.
With all the new heroes and space units, and the new tech systems (more on that later), the limit of 26 buttons has always been impossible for us to work with. So we had to opt for an alternative and we finally came to the Sub Menu system.
Chris wanted to implement this from the beginning, until he was declared inactive. He had uploaded some icons of this sub menu, but hadn't uploaded anything else. For this reason, we had to start from scratch and needed some time to implement the system. There are 3 subcategories: ship menu, structure menu, and research menu.
By clicking on each specific menu button, the other buttons are hidden and the relevant unit or structure buttons are shown. This system only works in Single Player mode, but there is no way to circumvent this problem and unfortunately there are no alternatives to this system. Therefore, as preliminary information:
The multiplayer is unfortunately somewhat reduced because of the FoC engine requirements, so the tech system we have implemented does not function in multiplayer.

Tech system
Now a few words about the tech system. In normal EaW research is linked, so that when the empire researches the components of Death Star (tech levels), they get lots of nice unrelated technology as a by-product. This isn't realistic. So we opted for a new tech system to try and fix this. Individual techs will be researched, specifically new ships, and only the researched technologies will be enabled. In early eras, this means that for the first corvette units (unlocking the Foray Class) , corvette technologies must be researched; or, to unlock the Thranta Class, cruiser techs must be researched. Researching each component will unlock further research. This system is also adapted for realism. It will cost a lot to research a ship class, more than the individual unit. The time per research has been increased. However, a special building for research is no longer necessary because the research is usually carried out on the planet's surface - so for V1 (as a space only mod), this is not relevant. The tech tree for era 1 (Light Side) can be viewed here.

One last note about a release date: We are now increasingly focusing on the recording and release of a trailer that also shows the internal team and fans that we are making good progress. A specific release date cannot yet be determined. Originally we planned a release for Christmas, but this will be unlikely to happen due to some problems lately.
What can be expected in any case, is a release no later than February and possibly even January - but I will not set a January date, as we may continue to experience problems - and nothing is worse than a disappointed fanbase.

I wish you all a beautiful first Christmas week

with best regards,
Shimrra

Some other screenshots not related to the news post but still related to mod.

Interdictor-class Cruiser


Old Republic Fleet


Galactic View (Old Republic Era)


Orbital Manufacturing


New Assorted Screens